The Girl Who Collects Shells
by winter machine
Summary: A/U after 4.15.  Following Addison's return from Connecticut, a series of steps - both forward and back - in her relationship with Sam.  Includes Addison/Derek in the past, and Derek in the present.  *Chapter 12 added.*  COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

"Addison, would you please take off those sunglasses."

"It's too bright," she says.

"I can't see you. I can't see your face when you're wearing those things. Please, Addison."

She removes the glasses slowly, folds them into her fist. The leftover snow reflects the sun into her eyes and she blinks hard, staring at the pine trees over his right shoulder.

"Look at me." Sam cups her cheek with a cold palm. "I need to see your face. It doesn't have to be this way, Addison. We don't always have to take one step forward, two steps back."

She considers this, watches the others load the car. Sam gives her a quick, hard hug. It's over before she can return it, sunglasses cradled protectively in one hand. He kisses her chastely and then he's gone. She retreats to the portico, watching as the oversized black car glides away along the private drive. When she can no longer make out its rear window, she steps into the foyer and closes the front door with decisive click.

Alone in the oak-paneled library, she mixes a martini, thinks about what needs to be done before she can leave. There's something about this house that constricts her chest, makes it impossible to draw the kind of deep, lung-cleansing breath she knows she needs. There's wine, keeping her at a low, functioning hum, and when that's not enough there's gin. There's the costume, black and pearls and tasteful heels and a sterling barrette she hasn't seen in years, discovered in her vanity drawer.

She wore the costume like a shield, and she was _fine, _everything polite and chilly, a numbed hum, until Sam confronted her in her old bedroom after the memorial service. The last time someone had grabbed her like that she'd been forced out of her house, barefoot and hysterical, and it was panic memory that first made her strain anxiously at his surprisingly iron clasp. Sam contained her awkward lunges, not loosening his grip until she collapsed in the first tears she'd shed since discovering the body. She'd sobbed in his arms, Sam waiting until her crying had tapered to press his forehead to hers, demand the truth one more time. She was broken open by then and the words tumbled out hoarsely. Suicide. Pills. The note. The fucking necklace.

Afterwards he'd rocked her, kissed the dark red smudges his fingers had imprinted on her upper arms. Cleaned her up so she could break the news to her brother. Exhausted, she'd fallen asleep fully clothed, head in Sam's lap, his hands knotted in her hair. She woke up in bed, his arm heavy across her stomach, early sun streaming in the window.

Even after a few years in southern California, the wintry New England sun glared painfully; the first thing she did as they walked away from the freshly dug earth was to replace her sunglasses. Sam took her elbow, Naomi and the Captain on either side of Archer behind them. "Careful," he murmured as her heels sank slightly in the half-frozen grass.

Back at the house, just outside the front door, he guided her away from the others. "How are you holding up, really?"

"I'm fine," she said.

"I can stay longer." He searched her face.

"Don't be silly," she said, kissed him briskly. "Your patients need you."

"Addison..."

"You came," she said. "You were here, Sam. You were right. Okay? But now it's done, and you can go. I'm fine now. I'll be back in a few days."

He slept that night spooned around her, a calf thrown over hers.

She flies commercial back to LA and as the town car whisks her away from the estate, down the parkway, sunglasses firmly in place, she sinks into the soft leather and thinks she won't mind if the ride doesn't end.

The Manhattan skyline is painfully bright in the late-morning sun as they cross the Whitestone Bridge. She's always liked the Whitestone: on one side, the city lights, close enough to touch, the picturesque Throgs Neck on the other side, ringed with sailboats in the summer, smoky grey water in the winter. She likes to be in between things.

She's spent so many hours in the back of so many town cars just like one. Crossed so many bridges, carried over the same roads. That's the thing about cars like these, they're indistinguishable and so are her memories sometimes. She blinks and it's fifteen years ago.

They were all but engaged, but Derek still wanted to ask the Captain for her hand; she'd protested but secretly been pleased. They took the train up to Greenwich on a rare evening off, Addison flushed with pleasure to be _that couple_, the one that hogs a five-seat cluster so they can face each other, knees bumping, sharing the Times crossword, attracting stares, laughing softly at jokes no one else can hear.

The Captain wasn't even there. Yes, he knew they were coming, but he'd been called into work, Bizzy told them. "He's a _professor,_" Addison hissed under her breath, anger a pale cover for the hurt, and her mother turned a cold smile on her. "Mumbling is uncouth, dear."

Bizzy disappeared into the study with Susan directly after dinner (plans for the City Ballet gala, they'd said at the time, but Addison snorts now at the memory, at her own childish stupidity).

"Addie, maybe we should go," Derek whispered as Bizzy closed the study door smartly behind her. She ignored him. "Addie, maybe you should slow down," Derek whispered as they perched on stiff chairs in the library, Addison taking welcome gulps of her fourth drink. She ignored him. "Addie, I don't think he's coming back tonight," Derek said finally. It was nearly ten o'clock. "We have early rounds." He folded and refolded a train schedule in his hand like origami, the bright red taunting her. Addison took a defiant swallow of gin, tears threatening. "We can try to come back next week," he said, his tone placating, both of them knowing they won't.

Bizzy sent them home in a town car. "I had no idea you were still here," she said coolly. "Really, Addison, one doesn't go to the station at this hour."

Addison had stared out the window as the estate disappeared behind her, not uttering a sound until they were speeding down the frosty Merritt Parkway. And then she'd sobbed in Derek's arms. He held her, shushed her quietly, one nervous eye on the uniformed driver. Derek was uncomfortable with a stranger present, with feeling his detached pity. But Addison had been riding in chauffered cars since before she could walk. She'd long ago learned the art of pretending no one else could see her. "Addie, don't cry." His words were partially muffled by her hair. "Your parents, they're just, you know, it's just how they are."

"I wanted them to be happy for me!" she'd cried.

"They are. They will be, in their way. Come on, Addie. Don't cry." He'd said all the right things, stroked her hair, let her cry herself out against him and by the time they approached the Triboro Bridge, she'd calmed down and slumped quietly on her own side of the car. Derek played with the fingers of her left hand as she stared out the window, her own sad eyes looking back at her from the semi-reflective glass.

Now, in the bright morning sun, she can't see her reflection in the window. It's just squat row houses and grimy billboards offering things she doesn't want. When the car pulls away without her, it's freezing at curbside, overheated as she's escorted through check-in. She flashes identification, confirms that she's traveling alone.

In some ways, she's always traveled alone.

But even with the intrusion of security, forced to surrender her heels, she's always rather liked airports: the controlled chaos, the way they are somewhere in between departure and arrival without really being anywhere at all. She appreciates the sleek anonymity of the first class lounge. A few yards away, there's a dark-haired child disappearing into an oversized club chair, murmuing softly to an adult version of herself. Addison studies her, swallows a dull ache with her champagne. She eyes the bones in her left hand, watches them move as she lowers the flute. Thinks of Sam's hands, the same size as her own but somehow capable of surrounding hers completely. She reminds herself she is somewhere.

Ensconsed in one more soft leather seat, sun streaming in the jet's windows, she adjusts her sunglasses. Sips another champagne, knowing she'll metabolize it fast on the plane. New York shrinks below her, the tiny identical dollhouses of Levittown, the sprawl of the Hamptons forking under the clouds. She's always thought of flying into New York as coming home, not even minding circling the city in a holding pattern, silver spires beneath her, always letting out a breath of relief as the jet skidded onto the coastal runways. Now she's leaving.

"Do you need anything?" the pretty flight attendant asks. _Yes. A lot of things. _She accepts more champange instead.

The pilot welcomes them to Los Angeles. "If this is your final destination, welcome home." His accent is faintly southern, artifically jovial. Addison wonders, not for the first time, exactly where her own final destination is. She's lived in California for nearly three years. As the wheels of the jet touch down, she thinks she _is_ home, maybe. She could be. She has a house, and it's nothing like her parents' - no, the Captain's, she correct herself - drafty estate. She has a view of the ocean. She has a cat who curls on her sofa and waits for her to come home.

She has Sam.

Sam, who flew across the country even when she told him she told him he didn't need to. He followed her. He broke her down. He wants to put her back together.

She's thinking of the breadth of his shoulders, the side of his neck where she likes to tuck her head, the way he looks at her face like there's always something new, and she pulls her sunglasses off as she strides through the terminal. Without them, it's bright, it's sun-dappled marble and neon. There are palm trees outside the windows. It doesn't hurt her eyes.

She thinks maybe Sam was right. That she is ready. They took a step forward; now they can travel in sync, into the rest of their lives. Maybe they don't need to take two steps back.

"Sam!"

Expecting only a driver, she's shocked to see him standing at arrivals, compact and handsome, a smile of recognition flashing white.

She steps into his arms. "I didn't know you were coming," she says, and then they're _that couple, _kissing at arrivals, catching stares, her arms twined around his neck, his hand sneaking low on her hip. But then he pulls back to look at her, grasps her forearms, his dark eyes searching but unreadable.

"We need to talk," he says, and she longs for the dim comfort of her sunglasses again.


	2. Chapter 2

"Addison, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

He shifts gears and as they pick up speed, Addison lowers her window, attempts a deep breath. Fails.

"Addison? Say something, Addison, please."

"You're sorry?" She raises her hands to her head, lowers them. There's nowhere to go, no room in the small car to contain her thoughts. "You tell me you fucked your ex-wife while I was packing up my dead mother's house and you're...sorry?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him wince automatically at the word _fuck_. He's such a gentleman - well, in some ways. Old fashioned. She used to find it charming.

"It wasn't like that," he says.

"Oh, what, she forced you? You had no say, is that going to be your story, really? Because she's been doing a lot of Pilates lately, I know, but it's still, it's kind of a stretch here, Sam, to convince me that-"

"Addison, would you _please_ just listen, look at me-"

She doesn't.

She stares straight ahead. Counts the cars in front of them, numbering the space between her exhausted body and the hot bath she'll need to remove the lingering odor of jet fuel and industrial carpet that clings to her hair.

He's watching the road too, chancing glances at her when he can, but he can't see her eyes anyway; her sunglasses separate them, filtering the glare of the freeway, turning his chocolate skin amber and hers the color of faded sand.

His hand throbs the steering wheel - once, twice. "Okay. Maybe I shouldn't have told you like this. This was a mistake," he says finally.

"No kidding." She turns her head to look out the side window. Her eyes feet hot, prickly, but she doesn't cry. She won't cry.

"Addison," he says gently. Reaches for her hand. She pulls it back before he can touch her, her skin burning just having him this close.

"Stop. I'm not - I'm not doing this now," she says unsteadily.

A little sunlight still filters around the dark frames. She can't avoid it. Not even with her eyes closed.

"Addison, please. Now is when we're here. We're here now. Talk to me."

She lets out a breath. "Fine. Here's a question. Did you really pick me up from the airport just so you could spring this on me in the car? Where I can't walk away? _Seriously_, Sam?"

"No, I - I said it was a mistake."

She rolls her eyes even though she knows he can't see them.

"You know, uh, it works in the movies," he mutters, and it's the kind of thing she would have laughed at if he hadn't just broken her heart. Damn him for ruining a perfectly good joke.

Among other things.

"Addison," he says again, and he's stealing sideways looks at her like he thinks she might break, or at least break out of the car. For one wild second she wonders if he locked the doors.

The small space fills with uncomfortable silence, her own rapid breathing loud in her ears.

Then she laughs. First it's one short bark and then she's laughing hard, her head dropping back against the seat.

"Addison? Addison, what's...what are you doing-"

"Don't worry. I'm not hysterical." She shakes her head. "It's just - I have this thing about getting picked up at the airport, have I ever told you this? My parents, you know, they always sent a driver. My whole life. And Derek would call a car service. Well, for a while anyway, then I had to call my own cars. And I'd see these other people getting picked up at the airport. Someone meeting them. And I'd just wonder, when will it be my turn? Because it's something - you know, it's a serious thing. A real commitment. You have to park, and you have to track the flight; you have to actually drop what you're doing and just _be _there. To pick someone up."

He's quiet, listening.

"And you came! I didn't even ask you to come pick me up today and you did. I've waited and waited for someone to pick me up, and you came. I just wish," she says bitterly, "that I'd had more than five fucking minutes to enjoy it."

He has half an eye on the traffic now, half on her; his voice is thick. "Addison, you have to hear me out, please-"

She doesn't. Feeling rather like a petulant teenager, but not much caring, she slips her earbuds into her ears, turns up the sound on her iPod, and tunes him out.

He leaves her alone until they pull into her wide driveway. He turns the car off, regards her for a long moment, and then gently removes the earbud closest to him. She grabs for it and he moves it out of her reach.

"Don't. Don't leave like this, Addison."

She grabs for the door handle, pulls hard, but it doesn't give. She jiggles it frantically.

"Are you kidding me?" She yanks it again. Sam tries to cover her hand with his own and she snatches it away. "_Don't _touch me. Let me out of this car, Sam."

"Addison, calm down, I've had this car since Maya was ten. They're child locks. Just sit still for a second and let me disengage them."

Oh. She must have been in his car before; she's not sure why she didn't know that.

Or maybe she's just never been this desperate to get out.

She jumps free as soon as the door opens. "_Go_, Sam," she says, but he just walks to the trunk and calmly unloads the one suitcase she brought with her.

She takes the handle. He's still holding the thickly padded side strap and shows no sign of letting go.

She regards him stonily and he stares right back, scanning slightly; he has to guess exactly where her shaded eyes are.

It's she who drops her hand first.

"Fine," she says. "Be my guest. Watch the fabric, please."

He shakes his head slightly, carries the suitcase to her front door.

"Thanks," she says coldly. "And thank you for the ride. Truly, Sam. It was... _memorable._"

"I'm so sorry," he says again, urgently. "Addison, the last thing I wanted do to is hurt you and if you'd just give me a minute to explain-"

"No." She fumbles for her keys, standing as far from him as she can. "There are no more minutes here. You've had your minutes. It's done. We're done."

Her voice catches in spite of herself and then in front of her, he's everywhere, trying to take her in his arms. She pushes him away, grateful he still can't see her eyes, and he releases her, hands lifted slightly in surrender.

"Okay, baby, I understand that -" but she never finds out what he understands because the front door opens and Amelia says "Addie! Welcome back," in a cheerful burst.

Addison gives her a tired smile.

"How was the flight?" she asks. "I guess you got a ride back, huh?"

Sam looks at the ground.

Amelia's cheeks scrunch with confusion. She glances nervously between Sam and Addison. "Um. Is everything-"

"Everything's fine," Addison says briskly. "Sam was just leaving." She steps over the threshhold.

"Addison. Wait -" but she shuts the door firmly, cutting off his plea.

"Whoa." Amelia takes her suitcase from her, offering a glass of wine in her extended hand. "I think we're going to need a little more wine for this one."

"Addie, oh my God," Amelia cracks a can of Coke, takes a long swig. She's the only adult Addison knows who still drinks regular soda. Curse that Shepherd metabolism.

"I mean, it's insane," Amelia hoists herself onto the counter. "Freaking insane. I can't believe he did that. That _sucks _- ugh, and right next door. That's just...it's just gross."

Addison shrugs, smooths out and refolds a linen dish cloth crumpled next to Amelia's knee. Amelia's housekeeping, in her absence, has been predictably minimal. Addison reminds herself to call the maid service first thing in the morning.

"I'm so sorry about this," Amelia says softly, in one of her lightning shifts from post pubescent brat to adult confidant, covering Addison's hand with her smaller one.

Everyone is sorry. Addison is tired of the word.

She doesn't need one more person looking at her like she might do something crazy.

As it happens, she doesn't do anything crazier than remind Amelia to turn the outside lights on at dusk if she disengaged the automatic timer, and then shut herself in the bathroom with a bottle of pinot noir to run the hottest bath she can stand.

Later, she's not sure how much later, she tips the dregs of a bottle into the tub - antioxidants, good for the skin - and leans back, closing her eyes. She's always loved the feeling of being surrounded by water. Her whole career, she's never delivered a baby without feeling a flash of empathy for its first shocked squalls at leaving the floating warmth of the womb.

She curls her toes in the tub, sinks further down, enjoys the warm water lapping the sides of her body. Thinks about oceans, close and far.

Summers on the Vineyard, when she was small, she had never wanted to get out of the water. She and Archer would jump the waves for hours, only broaching the shore to refuel, sandy-fingered, with lobster rolls and sun-warmed juice. She can still taste the way the buttery bun would melt on her tongue while stray bits of sand crunched between her teeth. The nanny of the moment would try, over protests, to wrap her wriggling form in a towel before she broke loose and bolted for the water again.

She could swim _far, _as far as Archer, and just as fast. She never waited half an hour after lunch, either - that was for babies - just trotted back to the water's edge, only stopping to scoop up a pretty shell or two before plunging back in.

_Not so far from the buoys, kitten, _the Captain called out once, one of the few times he saw her swim, but then he turned away without waiting for her to obey, distracted by her nanny - had it been Iris? Or maybe it was Brigid, who'd come straight from County Meath, jet-black hair and freckles and a lilting voice. Brigid called Addison "darling" and read to her from chapter books before bed.

Late one sticky August night, she remembered, she'd woken up in damp sheets, and not finding Brigid in the small bedroom off the nursery, she padded downstairs on her own for a glass of milk. Saw Brigid and the Captain wrapped around each other in his darkened office, a sliver of moonbean catching Brigid's pale wrist.

"I'm thirsty," Addison said from the doorway, but neither of them turned around. So she took an ice pop from the freezer drawer instead and brought it upstairs, curling very small under the overly warm tent of her sheets, slowly licking the frozen treat as her eyes grew heavier.

In the morning, no one commented on the purple stain on her pillowcase or the empty stick tangled in her long hair.

Brigid was gone before they packed for Connecticut. _Don't ask questions,_ Bizzy said.

Addison had still been sorry to see her go.

"Addie!"

She pulls her shoulders out of the tub. "I'm in the bath, Amelia."

"Can I come in?" She's already pushing the door open. Sam had said he would fix the lock; really, there's no reason she can't do it herself. Tomorrow.

Amelia perches on the vanity stool and regards Addison casually. She's never been one for privacy, of course. As a teenager she'd once interrupted Addison and Derek stealing a moment alone in a corner of the Shepherd garage, late on a Christmas Eve. Grinned as Addison, blushing furiously, yanked her hand out of her brother's jeans. "Don't stop on my account. This is better than cable!" she'd exclaimed brightly.

"I'm naked under here. Just to be clear," Addison offers now, gesturing at the melting bubbles preserving most of her modesty.

"I'm a doctor," Amelia shrugs lightly. "I've pretty much seen it all." She picks up the empty bottle of wine. "Bathing while intoxicated?"

Addison points a finger at her, hopes her hand is steadier than it feels. "Hey, some of that's in the water."

Amelia wrinkles her nose. "Ugh. I was going to order some food. Are you coming out anytime soon?"

"Probably not." she closes her eyes again. "Shut the door behind you, will you?"

The shadows across her bare legs have moved. The sun is getting ready to set. "Ad-die," Amelia calls through the door, stretching out the syllables. "What are you doing in there?"

"Thinking," she says, at the same time Amelia asks "Drinking?"

Well. They're not exactly mutually exclusive.

Amelia is close enough to the door that Addison can hear her soft breathing, but she doesn't turn the knob.

"Do you...want to talk?"

"Not at this particular moment, no."

"You want a refill?"

She does, but she's not sure she wants to admit it. "No, I'm okay."

"I ordered Thai," Amelia announces after a moment.

_Yay you._ It almost escapes her lips, but she swallows it before Amelia bears the brunt of whatever it is she's feeling. Anger. Something.

"Okay, thanks," she calls out instead. "Don't wait for me."

"Addie, have you eaten anything today?"

She thinks. There were warm macadamia nuts on her flight, but she's never liked those. She hears the door shift slightly as Amelia leans against it from the other side.

"Look, Addie, I pretended to have the flu during my psych rotation. My mind still wanders at meetings. I - I'm the last person who wants to talk anyone else through their problems, but ..."

"Just save me a summer roll," Addison says. "It's fine."

The water in the tub has gone as cold and cloudy as a New England beach before she emerges, a towel wrapped around her hair. It's dark, and Amelia has tactfully set up the food on the coffee table, drawn the blinds to the illuminatd back deck.

Good. The last thing she wants is for Sam to see her. He's seen too much of her already.

She manipulates the chopsticks with water-wrinkled fingers. The food is strong and spicy, surprisingly satisfying. Amelia flops on the couch, ripping apart satay with her fingers - it's better lukewarm, she says, and Addison smiles slightly because she knows Amelia wants her to.

Milo curls up on the cushion beside her, his furry face obscuring half the screen of her blackberry. His ears prick when it buzzes.

She ignores two calls from Sam. How convenient for the twenty-first-century relationship, she thinks, that now there's an actual button to press called "ignore," and just like that, the phone goes silent, instead of having to pretend she can't hear eight, ten, twelve or more increasingly desperate rings.

The next phone to ring is Amelia's, the on-call doctor covering a post-op for her at St. Ambrose, and she ducks out with ponytail and apologies flying behind her.

Addison and Milo regard each other for a moment. "Well," Addison begins, deciding it may be time for her to become the sort of person who talks openly to her cat, and her blackberry buzzes one more time.

Derek.

She's actually not that surprised he's calling, just as she wasn't surprised to see the donation from the Shepherd family to Memorial-St. Cecilia's in her mother's name, as Bizzy requested. Addison's already directed the staff to send a note of acknowledgement his way - Crane's heaviest stock, of course, pre-ordered by Bizzy herself, with sincere appreciations from the family of Beatrice Forbes Montgomery.

The donation was generous. Derek's always been good at the rote parts of what he is supposed to do, ever-appropriate, just enough to satisfy his obligations. Towards the end of their marriage, it was all either of one of them did.

"How are you doing, Addison?"

She doesn't say: I may have had a nervous breakdown in Connecticut, and my welcome home present was finding out that while I was making lists and sorting jewelry and pretending my repressed shell of a father doesn't blame me for my mother's self-inflicted death, my boyfriend was at home, fucking his ex-wife ten feet from their sleeping granddaughter.

"I'm doing fine," she says. "It's, you know, it's good to be back."

He's silent for a moment, maybe remembering the time he's spent at her parents' estate over the years. Usually awkward, mostly painful, and more often than not ending with Addison in tears or picking a fight with him before they'd even returned to the city.

"Amy said the Captain is selling the house?"

"That's the plan," she says.

They walk through expected niceties: the memorial service (touching), the Captain (holding up well), Archer (sends his regards), Sam and Naomi (the best friends she could ask for in her time of need). With rueful pride she realizes she is still rather good at lying to Derek.

She wanders to the back of the house, draws the blinds just enough that she can see outside. A flick of the lights and she can just make out the expanse of ocean, moving with a gentle roar.

"And you, how are you doing?" she asks finally. "How's Meredith?"

"We're doing well. You know, busy." He pauses. "Actually, uh, we've been dealing with some...fertility issues."

She can't help but roll her eyes. A dozen years of marriage and his timing is no better. But maybe he's learned something in the ensuing few years, because he trails off and sounds, for him, almost embarrassed.

"I shouldn't have brought this up now."

"No, it's fine," she says, somewhat surprised to realize that it is. It's not like they don't talk occasionally, swap email consults. They're civil, maybe even friends.

"She, um, she can call me if she wants," Addison says. "Have her call me in the office this week. I'm back tomorrow."

"That would be great. We have someone here, of course, but there was something they caught at the last -"

"I understand," she says, and it stings less than she thought to hear him say "we" and know she's not the second half of that familiar syllable.

"- visit that I hoped you could take a look at," he continues. "And I thought maybe Nai..."

She decides this would be the wrong time to tell him she's never going to speak to Naomi again. "If it comes to that, yes, I'm sure she'd be happy to help."

"Thank you," he says sincerely. "Look, if you need anything..."

_If I need anything, you'll be in surgery!_ She'd thrown that at him late one night, along with a delicate goblet, a wedding present from one of her Bradford aunts. The glass shattered on the wall a foot from Derek's head; her words hung unaddressed in the air between them.

_You need too goddamned much_, he'd shouted back finally, slamming the door behind him. She'd cried herself to sleep then; now, with the benefit of a half-dozen years' perspective, she thinks he may have had a point.

"I'm all set," she says. "Thanks, Derek. Have Meredith call me if she wants."

She hangs up and stands there for a while in her darkened living room, watching the waves break outside. From here, they look close enough to touch.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **First, thanks for reading, reviewing and sticking with this story - although a lot of the rest of it is written, I've been dogged by momentum and pacing issues. It's picking back up now. Also, as should be clear to anyone who watches the show, this story is now AU after 4.15.

**The Girl Who Collects Shells - Chapter 3**

There was a time when the hospital was her happy place. Before the hospital, it was school, where the bright chalk colors and chattering uniformed peers made a welcome respite from the muted colors and tense silences at home. Now a knot of dread grows within her at the thought of arriving at work. Amelia, riding next to her like a sleepy-eyed sentry, offers again to "kick some Bennett ass" in her name.

"No, thank you." Addison swipes Amelia's bare feet from the dashboard. "That's sweet, though."

She pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head like a crown. It's barely eight o'clock and all she has to do is get through the day with Sam and Naomi.

All she has to do is everything.

She sees Naomi first, hovering in the doorway of the sunny Oceanside kitchen. Her mouth is half-full with croissant and she clutches a black-and-white striped bag from the patisserie a few blocks away. There's a smudge of chocolate on the collar of her ivory sheath.

So she's hurting too. Addison presses her lips together.

"Addie," Naomi swallows. "We need to talk, because it's really important that we-"

"I'm working," Addison says, sweeps by her and is halfway to her office before Naomi's strained voice calls after her.

"You need to understand that-"

Addison's back is already turned. "I don't need to do anything," she says, and closes her office door behind her.

_One down, one to go._

She scrupulously avoids Sam but the universe, she knows, must enjoy her discomfort because she makes it barely two hours before, eyes on her blackberry and an armful of files, she strides directly into the wall of his chest outside the conference room.

He just says _hey_, steadies her with his hands at her waist and she has to pretend it doesn't ache to feel him this close.

"Addison..."

"I can't do this now."

"Okay." He says it softly near her ear, still holding on.

"Sam, please."

"I called," he begins and she cuts him off.

"I didn't want to talk last night."

"Addison-"

"I'm working, Sam. If I'm going to work here, and you're going to work here, then I need to be able to actually _work _here. In these four walls - I need to be able to work."

"Work," he repeats.

"Right," and she pulls away, braces herself with one hand against the doorframe like it's an earthquake that's making her shake and not an aftershock from something else entirely. It's easier when she doesn't look at him.

"Come over tonight," he says. "I'll make you dinner."

"What are you doing, Sam? Do you think things are just going to go back to the way they were?"

"No. I don't know. I just know that... I can't sit here and talk patient histories and clinical trials with you, Addison, when we've got this... _thing_...hanging over us."

He rests his hand on her back, lightly. "Look, I'll stick to work at work, if that's what you want, but you have to promise me we'll actually deal with this. At some point. Addison..."

"I don't think you're in a position to discuss promises right now."

But he doesn't move his hand so she has to pull in her stomach and edge sideways until the contact is lost.

His hand stays suspended in the air for a moment afterwards, like he's still touching her.

"I missed you."

"Not now, Sam." She's flipping through a thick patient history, trying to remember why this particular constellation of symptoms looks so familiar.

He stands in front of her, hands open like a supplicant. Exasperated, she closes the file. "What happened to letting me work?"

"I need to talk to you, Addison. I need a couple of minutes here to talk to you before you - _work,_" and he pronounces the last word like it really means something else.

"Fine, two minutes," she says. "Go ahead."

"Two minutes, okay." He collects his thoughts for a few seconds - he's so annoyingly _organized_.

"It was stupid. You know that already, I know, but I need you to know that _I _know that too. It was sentimental and stupid and ... I was lonely. I missed you. Can you understand-"

"No."

"Because you've never made a mistake," he begins and she cuts him off again.

"Stop it. No. You do not get to talk about my mistakes. I am so _sick _of being everyone's automatic retort when it comes to mistakes. I have paid for my mistakes, Sam, I have paid for them over and over again and I will not pay for yours too. I won't."

"Now," she looks at the clock. "It's been more than two minutes. I have patients to see and notes I need to review first. I'm not committing malpractice for you, Sam. Time's up."

It's a testament to the shape of her life for the last two weeks that taking a call from her ex-husband's ex-mistress-now-wife-of-sorts to talk about babies, of all things, is somehow the sanest thing she's done all day.

Turns out it's nowhere near earth-shattering, just one more conversation that opens with an apology she doesn't want to hear.

"I'm sorry," Meredith's voice is hesitant, "about your mother."

Though she's not proud of it, Addison is somewhat glad she doesn't say _we._

"Thank you," she says briskly. "Now-"

"And I'm sorry about taking up your time. You don't have to do this."

"Don't be silly," Addison says. She's reminded, somewhat amusingly, of awkward setups with the sons of Bizzy's Junior League friends; the conversations always seemed to start with this sort of stumbling volley. "It's my job."

Addison flicks through the electronic films while they talk. She could take this kind of patient history in her sleep, so it's not that different except that when she asks _this _patient about "the father," it's the man who slept next to her for fourteen years and let her practice drawing blood from his arm after she made a pediatric cancer patient cry.

But it's fine. She knows how to compartmentalize, tossing a silent thanks in her mother's direction for handing down this one thing she can use.

And she's somewhat relieved to realize, early on, that she can punt this one to Naomi. "You remember my colleague?" she asks Meredith before coordinating the details.

That's all she is now, a colleague. That's what Addison tells herself when Naomi follows her to the elevator, the films still in her hand. "Please, Addison. I'm happy to look at these or - whatever you want me to do, but we need to talk first."

"There's nothing to say," Addison presses the elevator button, twice. Next time she's taking the stairs.

"I like your shoes," Naomi tries, her voice fading on the last word.

Addison folds her arms. "That's not going to work this time," she says as the doors close.

She doesn't see Sam come up behind her as she scans the films she's posted on the lightboard.

"What is this?"

Hands on hips, she doesn't turn around. "_This _is work, Sam. And I don't recall asking for a consult."

"Addison, what are you doing? You're going to get your ex-husband's new wife pregnant? Is that really how you're going to deal with this?"

"You don't get to ask me any questions."

"I am your friend," he says firmly.

He's always liked these declaratory statements. _I am a man with asthma!_ he said once. And _I am not backing off _- that one was true at the time. _ I love you _- debatable. And _I will not hurt you - _don't even get her started on that.

"I get to ask you what you're doing. If you won't talk about our problems, you're trying to fix other people's instead - your _ex-husband's _problems - I get to ask. I am your _friend_," he repeats.

"Who says you're anything to me now?"

"If I weren't, you wouldn't be so angry. And it wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't hurt any of us."

The last thing she needs is for him to be right, so she sinks into her desk chair, suddenly exhausted, props up her head with one hand.

"Maybe you two should be together," she says into her fist. There was a time she'd wanted that, longed for its comforting symmetry.

"No." She lifts her eyes enough to see him shake his head. "Naomi is my past, Addison."

She picks up a pen, tosses it down again. Wishes she knew what to do with her hands. "You have a child and a grandchild with her. Sounds like the future to me."

"_You're_ my future."

"Oh, stop. Please. Don't patronize me."

"My daughter and my granddaughter don't have anything to do with this, Addison. This is about you, not trusting that we can move forward, make a future here-"

"Trusting?" she asks. "How can I trust you? I mean, assuming for a second here, Sam, that I'm stupid or lonely or _scared _enough to try this again, what happens the next time I'm out of town? All these opportunities - yeah, a child and a grandchild. We're looking down a long road of graduations and birthdays and communions and Christmas, you and Naomi, and that is _not _a road where you and I can move forward."

"How can you be so sure?"

She drops her head into her arms, already feeling she's said too much. "Just go away, Sam, please."

He leaves after her muffled entreaty, but not before launching one last grenade: "Giving _your _past a baby isn't going to fix anything, Addison."

By afternoon she's flicked her office blinds to half-mast and considers closing them all the way. She's fully exposed again, a scarlet woman, and the stares and silences are familiar from Seattle, from New York; all that surprises her is that she can still feel them. She's exhausted, raw. She hasn't even done anything wrong this time.

"Addison?"

She looks up briefly, returns to her notes. "I'm swamped."

"You asked for my opinion." Naomi hovers in the doorway. "I reviewed the files. I'm going to pass them on to -"

"Fine," Addison says. "Send me the details in an email."

"Addie, come on."

"I'm trying to get some work done."

"I can't work. Not until you talk to me. Please."

Addison tosses down her pen. It was a mistake maybe, coming back today. Sleeveless silk is no protection for the chill. Or it's just one of those days when it feels like a mistake to be anywhere.

"Fine. Come in. I'll talk to you if that's really what I want. I haven't had the chance to write anything down, though." It's meant to hurt and she's pleased when Naomi flushes and blinks, hard.

"So, all right, here it is off the cuff: you have thrown _everything _wrong I have ever done in my face, you _define _me by my mistakes like I'm nothing but a word, an insult, you call me a cheater _and _you call me your best friend...like you want to be congratulated for liking me anyway. Like loving me is a - a favor or something. An act of charity. And I held off with Sam. I held off for _you_, Naomi. If you'd said no, if you'd said never, I would have stayed away - not like it matters now. So if you want to be with Sam, be with Sam."

Naomi is close to tears now, and she tells herself she doesn't care.

"_Take him,_" she spits. "I'm done with both of you."

"Addie..."

"No. Personally, I'm done. Professionally, we'll have to see. You and Sam, today? Not exactly a vote in favor of my sticking around. So if anyone wants my services in this building, in this city, I'd better start getting the space I have _repeatedly_ requested so that I can actually get some work done."

Naomi starts to leave, her shoulders hitching.

"Sam's down the hall if you're looking for comfort," Addison says icily and Naomi turns back, tears running down her cheeks.

"I was looking for _you, _Addie. Just you," and she covers her mouth with her hand and leaves.

The fun's not over; the universe puts her right back in the thick of things as she stops in the kitchen for a desperately vital coffee refill. Sam's already there, his back to her, rummaging in a cabinet. She could leave, but she leans against the door frame, folds her arms.

"Do you want to be with her?"

"No." Sam turns around, his hands empty. "It was one time, Addison, I-"

"Not be with her as in sex, be with her as in ... _be _with her. The future, Sam. When we're old," _We_, she says, because they are the same age, this handful of people who pepper every memory of her last twenty years. "Tell me the truth."

"Okay." He walks closer, stops an arms length away and draws a breath. "I guess I always pictured us old together, Naomi and me - Addison," he reaches for her shoulder when she looks away. "Don't. You ask for the truth and then you punish me for it."

"Fine, go ahead."

"Naomi and me, that's - it's what I used to picture. That's what I thought, for the future. But now, I see _us_. That's what I see. That's what I want." His hand, still resting on her shoulder, feels heavy. "What do _you _want?"

"I want you not to have done this. I want to go back to before I knew about it."

"We can't go back."

"Then where?" Her words come out like a sigh.

"Forward. That's the only direction. Please, Addison, stop shutting me out. Talk to me. That's the only way we move forward."

"You want me to give you trust you haven't earned, you want me to imagine myself in a future that I don't seem to be a part of. No, Sam. I'm the one who gets to ask for things, and what I want is room to figure it all out."

"What are you asking for, exactly?"

"Space, Sam. I want space. I need it. Please."

"Addison, how-"

"I don't know!" She draws a long, steadying breath. "Sorry. Okay. Um, I just don't know. Please, Sam, just give me some space."

"Okay," he breathes, and the kiss he drops in her hair as he leaves is so light she might have imagined it.

He's true to his word, and they pass each other in the halls like strangers when it can't be avoided. She sees a patient, consults on another. She jots notes for an article that's due the next month.

Afternoon melts mercifully into evening, restless sleep carries her through to morning, and she starts it all again, one small movement on top of another until she can escape with the setting sun to the relative comfort of home.

She pretends to be fine and it works because that's all _ fine _reallyis, as she learned at her parents' knee. Pretending.

Truth is, she'd always thought it would be Derek by her side when she buried her parents. In his camel cashmere coat, if it was winter, the tip of his nose faintly red. She would tuck her hand in the crook of his arm and he'd fold it back against the warmth of his body. Or in an elegant lightweight suit, if it was summer, a hint of perspiration moistening the curls at the base of his neck. He'd stand close enough that, to an outside observer, it would look like she wasn't leaning on anyone.

Otherwise she's just standing alone.

But a Forbes Montgomery isn't escorted by a _boyfriend_, doesn't let something that fleeting and tawdry flank her weary side at this sort of thing and so she stood stiffly between her brother and her father in the frosty cemetery, Sam achingly close but too far to touch.

What she wishes for, she realizes now, is more time.

She wants that time back.

She would have let him hold her longer, the morning he left, instead of rousing him to pack. She would have pulled him close when he tried to leave with the others.

Told him she needed him.

Asked him to stay.

"I miss you," she says out loud. She's sitting alone on the deck, the globe of a half-empty glass of wine filling her palm.

She can't see him, the tiled wall is between them, but she knows he is sitting feet away. That he can hear her.

"Addison." His voice is rough. "Come over here."

She doesn't move.

"Let me come to you then." He sounds closer and she knows he must be just next to the wall.

"Don't."

"Addison."

"I'm lonely," she says. She's near enough to lean her head against the wall between them.

"I'm lonely, and I can't talk to you because of Naomi, and I can't talk to my friend, because my friend is Naomi. I'm lonely, Sam. I need a friend."

His fingers, just his fingers, broach the edge of the wall and reach for hers.

"I'm your friend, too," he says. "So take my hand."

She doesn't even realize she's reached out until his warm fingers fold around hers, cold and clenched.

They sit like this for long moments before she speaks again.

"I don't know what I'm doing anymore," she says finally. "I don't know where I'm going."

"You don't have to go anywhere, Addison." His hand is strong and she hangs on tightly. "Just...be here."

He's inches away. It would be so easy to walk around the fence and into his familiar arms.

"I can't," she says, pulls her hand free and retreats inside, closing the glass doors that separate her from the ocean.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **Apologies for the delayed update. Things are progressing both a little faster and a little more slowly than I had originally planned. Thanks for reading, waiting out my posting delays and letting me know what you think of the story - it's very much appreciated**. **

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**The Girl Who Collects Shells - Chapter 4**

The buzz of her phone interrupts Amelia in the middle of a story that was veering decidedly toward the obscene. Addison has been giving all the right responses (mainly alternating between _really?_ and _Amelia!_) but it's tiring, and she's not sure even a third glass of wine will be enough to carry her through to the conclusion.

"Addison."

His familiar voice speaks her name like an announcement - far better, of course, than the long months when it only sounded like an accusation. There's something else behind it too, but she's not sure what it is.

"Derek. Hi." She casts a half-shrug in the direction of Amelia, who's raised a quizzical brow, and ducks inside to take the call, leaving her former sister-in-law and a formerly full bottle of wine together on the deck.

"How are you doing, Addison?"

"Sam told you," she realizes.

He's silent, an admission.

"He had no right," Addison says angrily.

"Addison-"

"_No right,_ Derek."

"He needed a friend," Derek says simply.

"Be his friend, then. Be his friend and leave me out of it."

"Addison..."

"Look, I'm sorry he bothered you," she says, tucking her legs under her on the couch. "Not as sorry as I am that he ... did what he did, but - I'm not going to discuss this with you. It's not appropriate."

"You talked to Meredith, about - to be honest, I don't have a really clear idea what's appropriate right now."

"Fair enough." She sinks further into the cushions. "Great. Well, I'll see if I can find pictures of Sam's last colonoscopy. I'll send them over, and we can call it even."

"Addison -"

"Go ahead and say it," she blurts. "Turnabout is fair play, I got what I deserved, tables are turned, something about ...apples. Adultery and apples. Go ahead."

"I'm not going to say it." His voice is soft. "And you don't deserve this."

She's braced for him to gloat; kindness is harder to take. She waits until her breathing evens out to respond.

"Thanks."

"Sam feels terrible," Derek says. "That's what he told me. That's all I wanted to tell you. He's not proud of what he did."

"Fine." It changes nothing, and she knows he knows that too.

"He said - he's concerned about you. Do you...have someone to talk to there? With Bizzy, and now this-"

"One thing has nothing to do with the other."

He doesn't respond; the lie lingers undisturbed between them.

"Well. Let me know if you want to talk," he says, after a while.

There are a dozen others she'd try first, is what she should say, but the thought of having to back up numbers with names these days is distinctly unsettling, so she sticks with a simple _okay._

**ooooo**

"You talked to Derek," she says abruptly from the doorway.

"What? Addison," He's wearing his reading glasses, and she steels herself against their appeal. She's avoided him with surprising success since that night on the deck, and she's not going to weaken now.

Papers are spread out on his desk. It reminds her of how she'd sometimes find him in the library stacks before a big exam. He always liked to surround himself with information - see what stuck.

She strides in, stalks his desk. "You talked to Derek."

"You talked to him first," Sam says.

"He's my - " She breaks off. "Oh, I do not think you want to debate ex-spouses, Sam."

He has the good grace to look embarrassed.

"I know you told him about ... _you_," she accents the syllable with disgust. "Does he know about Connecticut too?"

"No," he says firmly. "Of course not. That has nothing to do with him. That's our business."

She paces a path in front of his desk. Derek knows, she's sure of it now. As sure as she is sick of pity.

"Look, baby, why don't we-" he starts.

"_Don't _call me that."

"Okay, I'm sorry. Ad-di-son," he enunciates. "You haven't spoken to me in days. Sit. Please? You're making me dizzy."

"No, I'm leaving. I was just - I was wondering, but I'm leaving."

"If you would just _sit still _for a second, talk to me, you won't have to wonder about anything. I will tell you whatever you want to know. Please."

"What about Naomi?" she spits. "Did you tell her about my mother?"

"Addison, of _course _not. I wouldn't do that."

"Really? I didn't think there was much you wouldn't do."

He makes a grimace of hurt, but she doesn't feel guilty. Doesn't feel anything at all, only the cool gust of air when she pulls his door forcefully shut behind her.

**ooooo**

The bar was Amelia's idea, Addison approving because it was somewhere she was pretty sure she wouldn't run into any colleagues. And if she can't get through a night without her choice of medicine, she might as well agree to a change of scenery.

Amelia perches on the high seat next to hers, one of Addison's highest shoes bouncing at the end of a crossed leg, sipping a club soda with two cherries. Addison checks her blackberry discreetly, hopes they can leave before Amelia asks anyone else if they want to see her tie the cherry stems into knots.

Because as stupid and sentimental as it is, and as much as it would displease Bizzy, sitting in this bar is making her _feel _things. Remember things: other bars, other people who've come and gone. And the whole point of this exercise - she smiles faintly at Amelia, knowing how much Amelia wants her to be happy - is to feel better. She's spent four decades defining _feeling better _as _feeling nothing,_ after all. It's too late to change.

It's just that bars like this always remind her of New York. How she could drink even more, then, before she felt anything at all. When she was younger. When everything was newer.

Naomi never could keep up. She'd be a mess: slurring, tripping, giggling. At the Forbes compound in Newport, where they blew off group steam on a few memorable occasions, Naomi was always the first to stagger inside and lose everything she'd ingested that day into one of the countless white marble bathrooms. In their New York days, even years after residency, Addison would still have to toss back two shots to every one of Naomi's if she had any hope of trying to keep them in sync.

"Ah, woman," Sam sauntered up to them one late night, Derek a step behind. "Look at you. These two shouldn't be left alone, Shepherd."

"You're the ones who left us," Addison giggled, because everything seemed funny this many drinks in, and nothing bothered her, not even the inevitable voicemail to say _just a little longer._ _Start without me. Sorry._

Naomi's voice was muffled by her hands. "Can't - can't drink with a WASP, Sam, can't do it. Big mistake. Asking for trouble."

"You weren't so bad," Addison reassured her, trying to pat her arm and missing.

"De-rek," Addison cajoled, catching the sleeve of his cashmere coat as he reached past her to close out the tab. "One more. Have one more with us."

"I think you're done, Addie." He settled her jacket over her shoulders. "It's almost four. We're not twenty-five anymore." She lolled heavily against him, giving in, and felt him sway a little as he took her weight.

"You're drunk." Derek's eyes crinkled at the corners; his laugh lines came in before the rest of theirs did.

She pulled at his lapels, trying to tug him closer. "And...?"

"And gorgeous," he said dutifully, hoisting her back up to a standing position. He took her wrist and draped her arm across his shoulders so he could support her. "Which goes without saying. Come on, Addison."

"Derek, honey," she said very seriously, or as seriously as anyone could say anything when the lights of Sheridan Square were swirling nauseatingly and _something _just scurried by her foot. "I really do not feel thirty...um. Thirty-three."

He just laughed and pulled her a little closer to his side. His hair smelled faintly of the green three-in-one soap dispensed in the hospital showers.

They hailed a cab on Seventh Avenue going in the wrong direction and, ignoring the driver's annoyed expression, piled in, all four of them. Like they were twenty-five again.

The cab had no shocks and little suspension, unsurprisingly. Derek absorbed the nauseating motion of a sharp right turn, holding her against him. She sat half on his lap, her head lolling near Naomi's shoulder, trying not to throw up at each brake-squealing traffic light.

"Thirty-four."

"Hm?" She'd been drifting in and out of dizzy consciousness and she lifted her head at the sound of Derek's voice, which was at once very close and rather far away.

Even in the harsh glow of the headlights his eyes were soft, looking at her. "Happy birthday, Addie."

"Addison." Amelia waves her hand in front of her face and Addison bats it down automatically, like a sibling.

"What?"

"You were a million miles away. What were you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

"Addie..."

"Fine. I was thinking about Naomi." It's partially true, anyway.

"You could call her," Amelia offers and Addison shakes her head.

"No. When something is done, it should be done. Look, just - let's talk about anything else, okay?"

"Like him?" Amelia nudges her in the direction of a business-type on the other side of the bar, nursing a scotch. His hair is thinning, but he has good shoulders, a strong jaw. He's wearing a tie that would have met with her mother's approval. Their eyes meet and Addison looks away quickly.

"No way! He's drinking alone, first of all, and he's...short."

"No he isn't."

"Well, he's not that tall."

"You mean he's not Sam."

Addison rolls her eyes, mainly at herself for falling into this trap. "Now is not the time, Amelia. Let's just - I'm off men for a while, okay?"

"Fine." Amelia chews her last cherry thoughtfully. "How about that blonde over there, with the big-"

"Amelia!"

"What? You said _men_."

**ooooo**

She pays for their night out with eye-burning exhaustion all through the next workday. When she's finally collapsed in bed, earlier than usual, twilight sleep carries her with cruel precision back to the stark hotel room - the imprint of which no amount of wine has yet been able to erase. She's right there: she feels the plush carpet sink beneat the point of her heels, feels the bag of expensive, freshly ground beans drop from her frozen fingers.

Opening her mouth to scream, all that comes out is a gasp as she wakes, sweat-drenched hair in her face, her sleepshirt wet and wrinkled.

She presses her lips closed around chattering teeth. Sam's feet are warmer than hers, always. She actually had to add a blanket to the foot of her bed after she came back from Connecticut, but it's a poor substitute. It's powerless against the chill she feels now as the dream-bestowed dampness evaporates into the air.

She spoons around a pillow, strokes Milo, tries to stop shivering.

It's early still, comparably. It's barely midnight. She reaches for the phone.

"Addison?" He sounds mildly surprised, but not irritated. He has a hundred ways to say her name and she's had years of practice drawing out the nuances of each one.

"Derek," she says, as if she's planned it all along. "Hey."

"Hey."

He's at the hospital, she thinks at first, because their connection is so clear; the faint buzzing that she remembers from the trailer is noticeably absent. Still on the blurry edges of sleep, he sounds even closer.

Once in a while, in the ensuing days and months after the end of their marriage - even rarely, and she can admit this now to herself, in a quiet and shameful way, _years _- some rote part of her that was buried in the daytime would forget what happened and start to reach out to him.

It was most frequent, of course, in New York, in those three pain-drenched months bisecting one life from the next.

She would roll over expecting her hand to brush the thermal shirt he liked to wear to sleep, the one with the hole in the cuff from her disastrous first attempts at marital laundry. Or in Seattle, she'd be half-asleep in the massive hotel bed, thousand-count sheets tangled around her legs, and she'd think she saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. _Just Derek_, would flash into her mind unbidden. _Getting a drink of water. _And she'd extend a semi-conscious hand, like she would have in their old room in New York, to guide him back to bed.

That was years ago, of course. In California, it's rare. It's almost never. But she can't say it hasn't happened: once in a very long while, coming off the half-crazed deep sleep that defies logic, she'll think she wakes to a flutter of him.

Muscle memory. That's all it is. Wait long enough and something else will replace it.

"How are you holding up?" he asks now. "Really."

She wonders, again, if Sam told him about Bizzy. She's not even sure why she cares, sure only that she needs to protect what's left of her secret.

"Why do you ask?" She can't keep a hint of suspicion out of her voice.

"Because I want to know," he says simply. His tone is gentle, one she used to crave, and not without a certain amount of shame she drinks it in.

"I'm okay."

"You're okay," he agrees.

**ooooo**

Mornings are hard. Mornings are when she blames herself.

She can fall asleep mildly proud of herself for saying things she wished she'd said a year ago, for fighting against the generations of breeding that taught her silence was better than honesty. She can even feel brave, for resisting the twin lures of denial and forgiveness that have trapped her more than once.

But then morning comes, and shame seeps in with the sun through hand-stiched curtains. There's something about how the first weak light of dawn stripes her pillow, hits the inside curve of her arm as it stretches across the empty half of the bed, that makes pangs of guilt overwhelm the rest.

Mornings are when everything starts to feel like a mistake - even waking up at all - and she tucks the duvet under her chin, thinking she should have put a stop to all of this long, long before it started. She's known both of them too well, for too long, for anything to come of it but one more heartache.

It could never have worked. He could never have been truly hers. What was she thinking? The outsider, she's been too intimate with each of them in all the wrong ways.

She stood up at their wedding, of course, in a sea-green bridesmaid dress she secretly loathed. They made vows in a big white tent; inside its flexible walls, it was noisy and warm, like love. She can remember certain pieces of the night with a fuzzy champagne-soaked tint: Derek dipping her deeply and laughing when she squealed; Mark disappearing into a gazebo with one of Naomi's cousins; Sam, too emotional, finish toasting his bride, faking a coughing fit on a strawberry. At the end of the night, they pushed en masse through the flaps of the tent into the shock of the cool air - a rebirth - and she freed her feet from the unforgiving straps of dainty sandals to twirl barefoot in the damp grass with each of them in turn, splashing tipsily into the shallow edges of the lake.

She remembers with vivid clarity the exhiliarating night she delivered Maya; held her goddaughter's tiny, wriggling body while Sam cut the cord and, when he saw the infant's pale newborn cast, growled with mock menace "Mark..." It made Naomi and everyone laugh through their tears, releasing the tension. When she made it out of the room, Derek and Mark had both grabbed her in a congratulatory embrace, Mark with a smirk and a handful of cigars pressed into her scrubs. She was only a third-year resident, after all. _You're incredible,_ Derek whispered into her hair, even though it wasn't like she'd just had a baby. She hadn't done anything, really.

The memories wrap around her, cling to her when she tries to wash them away with a hot shower, or to numb them with a cold one. The four of them, and Mark, before they knew what was coming, what they'd be cheated out of. She's a cheater, after all, isn't she? It's what her supposed best friend likes to tell her. Tangled wet hair and recriminations and decisions big and small - _nylons or bare legs_, that's about all she can manage.

So she sits half-dressed on the edge of her bed, somewhere between ready and not ready, and watches the pale light streak her comforter. She drinks coffee, wishes it were something stronger.

_Move forward_, Sam says, like it's easy. Like it's even possible.

She picks up the phone, dials impulsively.

"Addison." He doesn't sound surprised. Not even a little.

"Hey, Derek."

The weak dawn light has turned bright and hot by the time they hang up. She covers her bare shoulders with a linen blazer and her tired eyes with her oversized sunglasses. Another day is waiting for her outside the door, and - not without dread, but not ready for the alternative either - she steps forward to meet it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note**** - **Longest chapter yet, a heckuva lot meatier than the last, and I think I might be getting the hang of this outlining thing. I always appreciate hearing your thoughts, particularly as this story (and the relationship it describes) is so very push me/pull you. I've updated the summary as well (having realized it was rather limited). Hope you'll hang on, keep reading, and let me know what you think.

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**The Girl Who Collects Shells - Chapter 5**

"You're in late."

"My first patient is at eleven." When Charlotte continues to regard her steadily, she adds "I didn't realize we were punching a time card."

"Just wanted to know how you're doing."

"I'm fine." She smiles, only with her lips, and pours a much-needed cup of coffee. They haven't spoken much since Connecticut, but Addison remains painfully aware that Charlotte knows more than anyone else at the practice - other than Sam, of course - about the things she'd rather keep secret. The reminder of this makes her a bit too raw for eye contact, so she watches the motion of the spoon in her mug instead, until quiet footfalls assure her she's alone again.

There are land mines all over the practice: Sam's office far too close to hers; a budget meeting scheduled for later that day, at which she'll have to sit across the table from the remnants of her latest relationship failure and talk about percentage cuts and overhead like nothing's happened; Charlotte and her knowing glances. If she's lucky she'll make it through the day without running into Naomi.

She has all day to figure out how to navigate these halls, these people. Every day.

_What's going on, Addison?_ Derek had asked that morning when she called. She could have asked him if he knew about Bizzy. Could have told him she was angry Sam talked to him. Could have described the way this latest injury to her wounded heart attacks her breath and her sleep and her facade. She could have told him anything, she supposes now, but what she did tell him was that she planned to use a new technique on a pre-term newborn with an invasive mass.

It's easy to talk about surgery; it always has been. It's the comfortable space they navigate, between words, behind the silence.

For years, Derek took charge of driving out to the island, but toward the end, when he avoided their weekends if at all possible, she'd make the drive herself. He'd satisfy his role -as he almost always did - loading her into the car, pecking her lips and reminding her to call him when she got there. Often she couldn't wait; she'd dial from a lonely stretch of the expressway - even in bumper to bumper traffic she could feel lonely; it's a gift, truly - just to hear him. Bless the lax cell phone laws of the early millenium; she'd steer with one hand, press his familiar voice to her ear with the other. If she caught him he'd talk to her about whatever surgery he was starting or finishing, keep her company for a few miles. Even for a little while, it helped.

_Don't go if you don't want to go alone,_ he would shrug when she protested. But she couldn't stay in the city, in the summer - not every weekend, blocked on all sides by concrete and glass. She needed to be by the sea.

She liked it better when he drove, though. He'd steer with one hand, rest the other on her thigh. They'd listen to the Clash, or the game if it was on. The confines of the car comforted her; for a brief period, it was nice to know neither of them could leave.

The first weekend of each summer was always her favorite; she'd bustle around, checking the caretaker had kept up the house in their absence, while Derek found wine and glasses and pulled the tarps off the adirondack chairs. They'd sit outside, breath in the salty air, listen to the soft sounds of crickets, think about weekends ahead.

She'd gone up alone, the last year of their marriage, Derek in surgery. She'd unpacked the car herself, checked the pipes under the sink, thrown open the humidity-stuck windows against the stale neglected air. She hadn't even gone outside that first night in the house, the chairs untouched under green nylon. She just kicked her shoes off and stretched out on the white linen couch in the sunporch, downing two glasses of wine before she called Derek. He didn't pick up. She thumped a foot on the wide pine floorboards, waiting for the all-too-familiar beep of his voicemail to say: _I'm here. Just in case you were wondering._

Surgery was the easy part.

She'd also told Derek that morning that she would touch base with an old colleague from her fellowship days for some extra input. When Deepa calls her back that afternoon, flush with the news of a newly-acquired grant, she listens more closely than usual. A brand-new high-risk neonatal wing, funding for the kind of study that could only work in a state-of-the-art unit like that one.

No land mines.

Addison inquires casually about leadership, her voice light, her heart hammering in her ears.

"We're looking. Obviously, the best is unavailable - you know I stopped asking you years ago." Deepa laughs. "Wait, is it a possibility? You looking to make a change?"

"I'm...considering it."

"That would be incredible. I'll send you more information."

There's a lull in the evening after her last patient leaves, and she sits on the couch in her office, shoes off, legs drawn up under her, laptop on her knees. She reads the email three times, then clicks through the website.

She squints slightly, tries to imagine herself there. Yet another new start. New people. If she has any ex-lovers at all in Boston, she's not aware of it. And the thought of practicing medicine untangled from the cobwebs of her mistakes is unquestionably alluring.

It looks good, on the screen. Like a future that could fit her, a clean break. A step forward.

"You thinkin' of a move?"

Addison closes the laptop hastily. She hadn't seen anyone come in. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Charlotte says pleasantly. "Only thing is, seems like it would cost a bundle to pick up stakes and move every time someone pisses you off."

_You have no idea._

"The flip-taxes alone..."

"I'm looking for a friend, all right?" Addison lies. She realizes how the words sound and stumbles to correct herself. "I mean, I'm evaluating the position for a colleague who's interested in a new job. For someone else."

"I know what you meant."

**ooooo**

The thought of Boston sustains her through another night, another day.

Between patients, she clicks through the website again. Could she really go back to the east coast?

The newly refurbished unit is bright and beautiful, and the thought of crunching through autumn leaves again is tempting. There's a concurrent offer to teach a course at the university, and she's always liked Cambridge in the fall.

It was beautiful, when she'd visit Archer, weekends after he left for college and the silence at home, without him, started to hurt her ears. Six generations of Bradfords had gone to Yale and four generations of Forbes to Princeton, so of course Archer chose Harvard. He said the girls were better looking there.

She'd take the train up, sitting alone by the window - always with a textbook; she took enough advanced courses to ensure that her name wouldn't be all that got her into college - and liking the anonymity of it all. She could be anyone's kid sister or daughter or girlfriend even, off on a weekend trip.

She remembers feeling almost like a different person on those trips, a braver one, sleeping rough on the dorm room floor of whatever girl her brother was bestowing his favors on that weekend, getting served with no trouble at all at the kind of bars that would have made Bizzy pass out, if she'd ever asked.

She learned to navigate the central station on her own, take the T; find her way around the campus. This was long before cell phones made it easy to keep track of the people you love; sometimes Archer would be in a lecture hall, but more often than not she'd wander around until she found him in the square with his squeeze of the moment, smoking - "don't be such a baby, Addie," he'd say when she complained - and blowing off class.

But the most Bizzy ever said after Addison returned from one of these weekends was "Crimson doesn't flatter everyone, dear," and Addison balled the tee shirt up at the back of her wardrobe after that.

It might still be there, come to think of it. She hasn't seen it in years. She makes a mental note to ask the staff to look, before they finish closing up the house.

She thinks she might like to wear it again.

**ooooo**

Head full of autumn leaves and the tantalizing scent of clean slates, she inserts herself into the overfull kitchen, trying and failing not to notice Naomi in one corner. She gives her a curt nod anyway - the adult version, she thinks, of a playground snub - and roots in a drawer for a spoon.

"Are you really leaving?"

In retrospect, perhaps she shouldn't have been shocked that the juicy tidbit spread as fast as it did. _Your secret's safe with me_, Charlotte had said in Connecticut, and it was, which - in all fairness - should have put her on notice that without such a disclaimer, nothing else would be considered a secret.

"You told -" Addison shakes her head. "Does anyone in this practice ever keep _anything_ to themselves?"

"I had a good reason," Charlotte begins.

"Forget it. No secrets here, right?"

"Addie," Naomi tries. "It's just that-"

"Please." Addison holds up a hand. "I really have nothing to say to you, and my plans - whatever they may be - are not your concern." When Naomi doesn't respond she adds "It would be more convenient for the two of you, I'm sure, if I left-"

"Addison." Her conciliatory tone grates. "Don't-"

"Don't what? Talk about this now? Look around, Nai. Look at this group. Do you actually think there's anyone here who doesn't know that you screwed Sam?"

Naomi just watches, unblinking.

"I didn't know," Cooper offers. "I mean, until now, that is."

"Fine. Now everyone knows. Naomi and Sam rekindled the flame. I was in Connecticut, so I missed out on a front-row seat, but I'm _all _caught up now."

Charlotte's wide eyes are sympathetic, so Addison fixes her gaze on the wall instead. She doesn't want to be _sympathized_ with. Or understood. "Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy for them, and -"

"Addison," Violet cuts in gently, "Why don't we go talk-" and Addison interrupts before she can go further, because if she never hears that careful, patient tone again it will be too soon for her liking.

"Don't you even think about shrinking me right now," she says evenly. "_I _am not the problem here. _I_ haven't done anything wrong."

"No one is saying you've done anything wrong." Sheldon. They're circling her in a wide berth and she laughs mirthlessly. Let them treat her like she's crazy.

"Good. Because I'm sick of it. I'm done being blamed for everything." Her voice is loud in her ears, the pounding of her heart louder. "And the great irony- the great irony is, _she _thinks _I'm _a whore. I mean, isn't that just the most-"

"Addison." She hadn't heard Sam come up behind her.

"Oh, a Bennett reunion. How sweet. Do you want us to give you some privacy to get reacquainted?"

"No, I want you to come with me," he says quietly, closing a hand around her upper arm, and since his grip doesn't leave her much choice, she lets him lead her out of the kitchen, away from an audience that is half looking at her and half studiously avoiding eye contact.

He steers her into the empty conference room and closes the door behind them. She wrenches her arm free and stalks far enough away to glare at him from a less painful distance. He just leans against the door, folding his arms, and she has to train her eyes away from their shape.

"What are you doing, Addison?"

"Are you seriously asking me that?" She's wearing her highest heels; she's taller than him in them and she relishes the advantage. He's not immune to it, clearly, since he proposes - unsuccessfully - that she sit down.

"Addison," he begins and she raises her voice.

"I don't want to hear it, Sam! You lost the right to tell me what to do when you screwed-"

"You need to calm down," he interrupts, his tone irritatingly steady. "You don't want to do this here."

"Maybe I do."

"You don't. Come on, Addison, just calm down. There are patients in the lounge. This is a place of business."

"Are you seriously lecturing me about professionalism? If I'm not wrong, you and Naomi christened this very table a few times. At least." She taps the shiny surface for emphasis.

"Stop," he orders quietly. "Enough. I know you're still angry with me, you have every right to be angry, but this is not the time or the place to deal with it."

"_You're_ going to tell me the right way to deal with things?"

"And I know you're angry with Naomi," he continues, ignoring her interruption. "Angrier, maybe, but this is -"

"Why are you defending her?"

"That's not what I'm doing."

"I don't want to see her, Sam. I don't want to see her when I'm trying to work - I'm just trying to _work._"

"Addison," he says gently. "She's working too. She was consulting with Violet. I don't think you can avoid seeing her sometimes, when both of you work in the same building."

"Then maybe I shouldn't work here. Is that what you're saying?"

"I understand you're considering other options." His face is pained and she wants to be strong enough not to care. She fakes it instead.

"I don't want to talk about that."

"Of course not."

How dare he. She's the one with the anger rights here, and she snaps "I'm sure that would be ideal for both of you - it would make things much easier, wouldn't it?"

"I can't keep up with you." He shakes his head. "Do you want us to leave you alone? Do you want us to ask you to stay? Which do you want?"

"I want you to stop referring to yourself and your ex-wife as 'us'."

"How about you and me? Can I call you and me 'us'?"

She studies her hands. "I don't know," she says, hating her traitorous voice for its tremble.

"Addison." He approaches her and she holds out a hand to keep him back.

"Don't."

"Okay. Look. You asked for space. I have tried to give it to you. That doesn't mean I stop caring. Or that I'm going to stand by and let you lose it in front of everyone you work with."

She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, hard enough to see stars. There's a sting at the bridge of her nose that signals the approach of tears, and she's going to keep them away if it's the last thing she does. Resigned to her imprisonment, she pulls out a chair, sinks into it and drops her head into her hands.

"Addison." His voice is behind her now, a gentle hum, and he rests his hand at the base of her neck. "I think...would you consider going home? Let me drive you home."

"I have another patient." Her voice is muffled by her hands.

"You need to take it easier. I - maybe you came back to work too soon. This is a stressful-"

"I'm fine, Sam." She sits up, runs her hands through her hair, pushes the chair back from the table. Sam's hand drops back to his side.

"Do you mind?"

He steps aside, gesturing wordlessly at the exit.

**ooooo**

She's too tired to put up much of a fight when Naomi pokes her head into her office. "Do you have a second?"

Apparently taking Addison's silence as permission, she slides in and closes the door behind her.

"About before, I - I wasn't trying to upset you. I just - I heard that you might leave, and -"

"I don't want to talk about it." Maybe she should print up t-shirts with that phrase so she's not forced to repeat herself quite as often.

"I never wanted to hurt you, Addie."

"Please, let's not do this again."

"I was okay with you and Sam. I _tried _to be okay with it because I wanted you to be happy. Because I _care. _Can't you just consider for a second that-"

"No," she says shortly.

"Why are you willing to forgive him, but not me? Why is that fair?"

"I haven't forgiven him."

"You talked to him. I saw you talk to him. Why won't you talk to me? Addie, we were _best friends_. We've gone through other things. Worse things. We've forgiven each other for more-"

"I can't do this with you, Nai."

"It was one time, Addison. It didn't mean anything-"

"It meant something to _me_."

Naomi looks at her feet. "That wasn't what I - I know, Addie. I just - I don't want to lose you over this."

"I think you already have." Addison can't meet Naomi's eyes, settles for looking at her own hands instead. They're trembling slightly. She concentrates hard enough to make them stop. No emotion in public - that's not such a hard rule, is it?

When she glances up again, Naomi is gone.

**ooooo**

He looks shocked to see her the next night. It's after midnight, silence and crickets and her finger still pushing hard on the bell when he pulls open the door. He's dressed casually, for sleep maybe, in an undershirt and sweats and she can't keep her eyes from the breadth of his arms.

"I don't know why I'm here." She rests a trembling hand on his doorframe. "I just - I don't know if I can lose both of you. I can't trust either of you. And I can't choose. So what am I supposed to do?"

"Addison..."

"I shouldn't have come." She's wearing flip flops, no purse, no idea what she's doing. She knows she should leave, because having him right in front of her, his solid bulk so real, is interfering with telling herself she's fine.

"You said you wouldn't hurt me."

There it is, the one accusation she hasn't yet made, loud and powerful in its silence.

"You promised."

His eyes are as bleak as she's ever seen them. "Addison, I-"

"No." She covers his mouth with her hand. He doesn't try to push it away, just kisses her palm. A drop of moisture splashes between her fingers.

"No more promises. Don't you get it, Sam? These promises you make, they don't matter. Not if you're going to break them anyway."

She releases his face and he maintains the distance between them, touching her only with his eyes. "What about the ones I've kept?" He follows her with his gaze as hers flickers aside. "Do those matter?"

"I don't know what matters anymore. I don't. I - "

"Just let me hold you for a minute," he coaxes in that warm velvet voice. She _can't,_ there are tears in the back of her throat, so she does the only thing she can do, grabs the sides of his face and silences him with her lips.

It's fast and hungry and desperate, the feel of him achingly familiar, and he says "wait, Addison," twice, but he doesn't stop her, and she knows he could stop her if he wanted.

She closes her eyes on the stairs, a mirror image of her own house, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase. His head smacks the wall in the hallway with a dull thump as she shoves hard at his shoulders, unable to wait.

His bed makes her think of his betrayal so she looks past him, anywhere but at him, rakes her nails down the ropy muscles of his back. She would have accepted the floor - really, it's better suited to her mood.

She slaps his hand away when reaches tentatively toward the drawer in his bedside table. "I'm barren," she pants, turning her head away as he readies himself above her. "Remember? And I ran Nai's screen myself last month, she's clean, so unless you _fucked _anyone else I don't know about" - he pushes into her, with little ceremony, and she gasps - "...then don't bother," she finishes, needlessly.

He locks a hand in her hair. "Addison, I'm sorry, I-"

She closes her eyes, muscles shifting naturally, her body accommodating him where the rest of her won't.

"Shut up and do this," she says, tightening around him, and he sucks her tongue, already sour with regret, into his own mouth.

Afterwards she stares at the ceiling, self-loathing sticky behind her eyes.

Her legs tremble when she swings them over the side of the bed, when she dresses fast and guilty by the dim glow of the beachlights outside. He's propped on an elbow, watching her.

They've done this enough times for him to recognize what she's doing. That it's nothing like the languid stretching, the exagerratedly casual way she'd slide into her bra, eyes locked on his, watching him watching her. She'd sift through his sheets for discarded scraps of silk. They'd always pause, half-dressed, to admire the bits of each other they'd miss during the long workday.

Now she yanks her shirt over her head with no ceremony, her rigid back to him. She struggles into crumpled jeans, catching her foot on the hem, pulling hard and almost tripping.

"Addison."

She's the gangly teen in the gym locker room again, limbs too long to hide.

He grabs her wrist as she walks by.

"Addison, stop."

She tugs uselessly at his grip, one hand on the door.

"Don't leave like this."

"Just let me go, Sam," she says, looking away, and he does.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: **Apologies for the long gap between updates. Working in tandem on two very different Addisons/stories is harder than I thought it would be. I'm so appreciative that people are still reading, and I hope you'll continue to do so and let me know what you think.

**The Girl Who Collects Shells - Chapter 6**

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"Addie, what's going on?"

Addison blanches under Amelia's appraising gaze. She's been frozen in the same spot on the sofa for hours, watching the breaking dawn slowly light the room. Now Amelia descends the stairs, studying Addison too closely for her liking.

"You slept with him!" she crows as she reaches the bottom step.

"No! Well, sort of. Okay, yes, fine. How did you -"

"Give me a little credit."

Addison sighs. "Look, Amelia-"

"So what was it? Make-up sex? Break-up sex?"

"Neither," Addison says firmly. "Or maybe a little of both. I'm not sure actually. But It's not going to happen again."

Amelia gives a little smile, somewhere between sad and optimistic. "Whatever you say, Addie."

She spends a long time in the shower that morning, turning her face up to the stream of hot water, letting it gush over her cheeks like tears.

Shameful morning after. Finally, something she can do.

She may not know how to process her mother's suicide, or navigate the painful paths among the daily office landmines - but this she can do. The morning walk of shame, an extra long shower, the guilt - she knows it all by heart. She slips back into the feeling like a familiar old shirt.

**ooo**

The landmines are still there.

"Addison, can I see you for a minute," Sam says, standing in her path, and she's had it with his questions that sound like statements and his statements that she has to question.

"Not now, Sam."

"It will just take a minute."

"Not _now,_ Sam."

She pushes past him, closes her office door behind her and leans against it, letting her head rest against the solid surface. If she never had to go out there again she'd be relieved at this point. She's alone here, she realizes, more deeply alone than she's been able to admit. In a practice full of people she's still alone, and if there's any cloak she wears more naturally than shameful morning after it's this one. It's the loneliness that's chased her in crowds of people, terrible and hollow, all her life: in dancing school at ten, college gatherings at twenty, cocktail parties at thirty and here, now, in this place she once thought could almost be her home.

He knocks twice.

She pretends she doesn't hear.

**ooo**

He corners her outside the conference room, late afternoon sun slanting across his face. She has to squint to see him. "Addison, I need to speak with you."

"I have patients." She starts to brush by him and he opens his fist to reveal a familiar scrap of blue silk.

"How about if I just return these, then," he says and she sees Violet glance over.

"Sam!" she closes his fist herself, pulls him into her office. Back against the closed door, she folds her arms, mimicking her earlier posture. But this time she looks him right in the eye.

"Seriously?" she asks.

"They're yours," he shrugs. "Even if you're not speaking to me. Anyway, I know you like this pair. I also know they cost more than what I made in a week waiting tables in college. I know you, Addison." He thrusts them into her hand. She accepts them, warm from his grip. "You may not want to hear it, but I do."

"You don't know as much as you think you do."

"I know that you'll -" his eyes flicker to the open shades of her office windows - "_sleep _with me, but you won't talk to me. We can survive this, Addison. I still believe that. _If _you'll talk to me. We can."

"I don't want to talk to you," she says. "I'm not there yet."

He takes half a step closer. "I heard you last night. I get it. I'm done making promises, all right? I just want to be with you."

"Sam, enough." She massages her temples, not sure how much more of this she can take.

"Tell me," he pleads. "Tell me what I can do to fix this, to get us through this. Tell me what you need and I'll do it."

"Stop calling me," she says. "Stay out of my office. Stay on your side of the wall. Back off, Sam. _Really _back off this time. Please," she adds.

He considers it for a long moment. "All right."'

"You've said that before. You just keep pushing," she says recklessly, choosing to ignore the fact that it was she who rang his doorbell the night before.

"You want me to stop pushing, I'll stop pushing." He lets her description slide without objection. "The pushing is done. You're not going to move across the country without a little warning, though...?"

"Sam!"

"All right, all right." He raises his hands in surrender. "Starting now. Come and find me when you want to talk."

"I don't know when that will be."

"Whenever it is, I'll still be here," he says. "I'm not going anywhere." He kisses her forehead, like a benediction, and leaves her standing alone in her office with a fistful of silk.

**ooo**

There's no office landmine quite like the confines of the elevator, four walls to contain the explosion and no way out. She's reminded of her failed goal to take the stairs when the doors slide shut and she's alone with Sheldon. _At least it's not a Bennett_, she thinks.

She gives him a brief nod, hoping he's smart enough to keep his distance. She's had it with people looking at her like she's about to break.

"Staying present is the hardest thing about pain," Sheldon says with no introduction, as if they were in the middle of a conversation. _Apparently he's not smart enough. _"Staying with the pain, being in it instead of going somewhere else when it gets hard."

"Sheldon," she pronounces his name with practiced pleasantry. "I am bigger than you. My shoes are pointier. And while I may be from Greenwich, I spent four years in New Haven - in the eighties. So unless you'd like me to demonstrate the skills I picked up to prevent unwarranted attacks, I suggest you back off right now."

"Taller," he says.

"Excuse me?"

"You're taller than I am. Not bigger. My shoulders are broader. Unquestionably, I outweigh you, by a significant amount. Anyone would conclude that _I'm_ bigger, actually."

"Is this about your issues or mine?"

_Touche_, he doesn't say.

**ooo**

She calls Derek that night. Half a bottle of wine, Milo curled beside her, shoes kicked off, tantalizingly close to a habit.

"I'm not speaking to Sam," she announces. _How's that for facing my pain, Sheldon?_

"Addison. I have a surgery in an hour..."

Now _this _tone she remembers well, and she plays her own part with pitch-perfect muscle memory. "Fine, Derek. Just go."

But he doesn't and after a minute she releases a hard breath. "Sorry," she says. "I'm sorry. I know I don't have any claim on your time, not anymore, but-"

"It's all right." She offers the avoidance and he jumps at the chance: their old dance.

"I have a few minutes. What's wrong, Addison?" Like she's a post-op presenting with complications.

The problem is that she's alone. The problem is that she doesn't have Sam. Or Naomi. The problem is that she needs to hold on to what's left of her secret, because it might be everything that's left at all.

"I'm not speaking to Sam. Is he still speaking to you? I want to know what he's saying, Derek."

"Addison..." he speaks her name with waning patience. Oh, she remembers this tone well; back then it was sometimes _honey ... _but the timbre of his voice is identical.

"Bizzy committed suicide, did he tell you that?"

His sharply drawn breath is all she needs to realize she was wrong.

_Damn_.

"Addie, _what_?"

"Um." She fiddles with the sleeve of her sweater, buys time. "I thought he-" she tries as Derek says "I thought you told me it was a heart attack."

"Well, it was sort of a heart...thing." She takes a long swallow of her drink. "I thought when you talked to Sam..."

"Suicide?" he asks huskily. "Addison. I'm sorry, I'm very sorry. I had no idea."

"Almost no one does. She wanted it that way."

"Of course."

"The Captain doesn't know. I think it would kill him to find out, so-"

"He won't hear it from me," Derek says firmly. "Not that I expect him to do anything except take a swing at me if I see him again."

"That was one time, Derek."

They're both silent for a minute, remembering, the hint of a smile on Addison's lips when Derek asks, "Do you, um, do you want to talk about it?"

She has to swallow an automatic whine: _Didn't you say you had to go? _She ignores their old dance, sets it aside like discarded sheet music. Tries something new.

"No," she says. "To be honest with you, I'd prefer to just forget about it. Be done with it."

"What does Sam think of that?" he asks casually.

"I'm not talking to Sam, I told you. But he wants to talk. You know him."

"I do. I guess I still do. And you," he adds. "I know you too."

"I guess you do," she says, and after a long, melancholy swallow of wine she gives a congested sort of laugh and says "we sound like Dr. Suess."

He chuckles. "Sam-I-Am, right? Nance's little ones are still crazy for those books," he says. "And tongue-twisters, they can't get enough tongue-twisters."

"I miss them."

"They're around," he says. "Nancy said she invited you to-"

"No," she shakes her head even though she knows he can't see it. "It's better if I - I can't keep going back there. Going backwards...it's not..."

She takes another sip of wine instead of finishing her sentence, thinks she'll never tire of the heady scent of the wine mixed with the sound of the waves outside.

"I'm sorry, Addison, but I really do have to go."

"I know," she says. "I know. I do too."

**ooo**

He calls her back early the next morning. "Are you all right?"

"Of course. I'm fine." She rolls to her side, still in bed. It's harder to get up in the mornings now; she holds on to sleep and the edges of her duvet, dawdling. Postponing the inevitable.

"Does anyone else know? About - your mother?"

"Sam knows. Archer. And now you," she says. "That's it."

"You don't have to keep it a secret."

"She asked me to."

"Even so."

"You can't tell anyone," she says quickly, panic jerking her to a sitting position against her headboard. "Derek -"

"I won't, of course I won't. I'm just not sure how healthy it is for you to keep it a secret."

"She _asked _me to."

"She's gone, Addison. Keeping her secret now isn't going to win you any points."

She hangs up.

Thirty seconds of heart-pounding anger, cheek-burning shame, blood rushing in her ears.

He calls back.

"That came out wrong. I'm sorry. Addison, I'm sorry."

She fists damp eyes; there's something about his apologies that always twists her heart. Somehow they end up hurting her more than whatever he did to prompt the apology. "Don't worry about it."

"Look, I just don't like the idea of you knotting yourself trying to do this for her." His voice is quiet. "It's not good for you."

**ooo**

_I hate the way you act around her! _Derek snapped at her once, during an Easter visit years ago. It was one of the last times they stayed at the estate. _Why do you let her do this to you?_

The argument that followed was a bad one, worse - not better - for having to be conducted in low tones. When finally he stormed out of the house to cool off, she panicked after barely five minutes and chased his shadow down the front steps, too late to find him. She curled in a rocking chair on the porch to wait for him, shivering with a combination of early spring, late frost, thin cotton and the ever-present anxiety.

She must have fallen asleep because his warm breath on her face was the next thing she remembered.

"It's barely forty degrees. What are you thinking?"

"I was waiting for you," she mumbled as he pulled her to her feet.

"I went for a walk. I told you. Don't be like this, Addison," he urged as he pushed her ahead of him through the door.

"Do you like me at all?" she challenged, turning around.

"You're being irrational. I'm not having this conversation now." He rubbed her arms briskly. "You're shivering. Put this on." He shed his coat and wrapped it across her shoulders.

"It's irrational to want my husband to like me? Even a little?"

"Addison." He cupped her face in his hands. "We are leaving in the morning. I cannot take any more of this. This house is not good for you. _She's_ not good for you. No," he said when she tried to pull away. "Listen to me. This is not you. It's not you talking. So let's go to sleep and we'll deal with it tomorrow when we're not _here._"

He crawled into bed after her, draped an arm over her waist and she pulled away, rolling to the other side of the mattress. "Leave me alone."

He sighed loudly. "Addison, don't do this."

"You said we should sleep, so let me sleep." She stared at the single patch of moonlight pooling in the corner of the room, eyes hot and damp.

"Addison..." The exasperation in his voice stung like a slap and she twisted further away from the fingers grazing her flesh.

"I'm trying to sleep," she said tightly, tears in her voice.

He grasped her arm and pulled her roughly toward him, settling her against him over her protests.

"Let go!"

"No." He hooked a leg over hers, wrapping his arms around her more firmly to still her. "Calm down and go to sleep. Calm down, Addison, you're all right."

She pushed fruitlessly on his shoulders. "Derek!"

"I love you." He kissed the top of her head, which was wedged just below his chin. "And I like you, most of the time. In this house, maybe not so much. But I love you, and we're leaving in the morning, so go to sleep."

"Let go of me."

"Don't let her do this to you, Addie."

She flopped against him, giving up her struggle.

"I don't like this house," she whispered into the fabric of his shirt.

"I know." He stroked her hair. "Go to sleep, you're all right."

**ooo**

"You're all right?" he asks now. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"This is -" she can almost _feel _him shaking his head. "This is something else, Addison. It's a lot to deal with."

"It's fine," she says shortly. "I'm fine. I only brought it up because I thought Sam - anyway, I didn't mean to burden you."

"You're not _burdening_ me, Addison. Look, you should talk to Sam."

**ooo**

She doesn't talk to Sam.

And Sam sticks to his word.

He doesn't call her. He doesn't push. He's cool and professional at work; she makes sure not to meet his haunted eyes, to make sure she stays _fine._

The rule is that he can't call her, though; not the other way around. Not that often, but sometimes, she calls him. Always at night.

The first time, she's had a little more to drink than she intended. Again. She doesn't say much, just sighs wetly into the phone. Thinks about his hands.

"I'm not sure if you're even still there," he says after a few minutes, which is fitting, she thinks, because she's not sure either.

The next time, when he tries to talk she interrupts: "Don't say anything."

But on a few late nights when the silence is pressing on her, keeping her awake, she says "Talk to me, Sam," instead. "Talk about something else."

So he talks like nothing has really changed between them, about the beach in Mexico where they all celebrated passing the boards, where the ice cubes left Mark so sick that he insisted on scrawling an alcohol-soaked last will and testament on the back of a bar menu - this makes her smile; she and Derek kept that salsa-smeared menu in a kitchen drawer for years, for blackmail; about the scent of the begonias in his grandmother's front yard; about the way it felt to finally, gloriously pedal a bicycle with nothing holding him up but air... about everything and nothing at all, until she falls asleep.

Another night - but just once - she cries.

"That's it. I'm coming over, " he says. His voice is raw.

"No, Sam, you promised," she chokes even though he didn't, not really.

She doesn't know what's wrong with her, why it's _this _night that hurts so much. _Grief has its own timetable,_ that was what Sheldon said once. _You can't get off until the ride is over._

So Sam stays on the other end of the line, silent, while she presses her hand to her mouth, shoulders shaking, wet salt splashing her cheeks and the screen of her phone, until it passes.

When at last she's quiet, when all she can hear is her own hitching inhales and his breathing (slightly ragged but steady) he asks: "Is this making you feel better, Addison? Putting us through this?"

"A little, yeah," she sniffs. He exhales hard, one audibly angry puff of air, but he's still on the other end of the phone when sleep overtakes her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note 1: **Longest chapter yet. We're getting toward the home stretch. If you're still reading, please let me know! (And many many many thanks to those of you who've been reviewing, it's terribly reassuring to think I'm not avoiding my work for nothing...

**The Girl Who Collects Shells - Chapter 7**

* * *

She thinks about time.

Sheldon wants her to be in the pain. Amelia, as she knows, would agree. But she's not thinking about pain, not exactly - what she's thinking about is time, and the way that pain shapes time.

For example, she sees the pink message slip announcing that Meredith Grey called and she knows that it must have been four weeks since last they spoke. One full cycle since the last time they tried. Which means it's been five weeks since her return to the practice. Which means that it's been five weeks and one day since she found out Sam slept with Naomi. It's been five weeks and three days since Bizzy's funeral. It's been five weeks and six days since -

But she's not going to think about that. She snaps shut the thought as if time is really just a date book, a leather planner like the one Bizzy used to carry. Everything's electronic now. Everything's ephemeral. Once, a while back, her hard drive was wiped out and it was like the entire year had never existed.

"Meredith Grey called again."

A week. A quarter-cycle. Count time and you don't have to think about pain. Mark the days and the rock in the pit of her stomach, a hard ball of _something_, doesn't even matter.

"Thanks." She accepts the fan of pink message slips, hoists her sunglasses to the top of her head with her free hand. It's dim inside, after the painful glare of the midday sun.

"Meredith Grey?" Sam passes her, a file in his hands. "You're still working on her?"

"I'm still involved."

"I thought you passed it on."

"I did. I'm overseeing - Sam, what exactly does this have to do with you?"

"Why are you still involved?"

"You don't have any right to question me on this!" The substitute secretary glances up at her tone.

Sam takes her elbow, steers her away from reception and into the empty conference room. "Look, Addison," his voice is quiet, "I am just trying to understand what is going on with you and - Seattle."

"The entire city?"

"I don't know, you tell me."

She scowls. "I'm helping a friend."

"Really."

"What the hell are you suggesting?"

He raises a conciliatory palm as she raises her voice. "Nothing, Addison, nothing."

"Just because _you _solve problems by screwing your ex - "

"I never suggested - " he shakes his head. "Why are you so angry?"

"You mean other than you cheating on me in pretty much the cruelest way possible?"

"Other than that, yes," the words come out between gritted teeth.

"Because what I do is no longer your concern, and I don't want to be questioned."

"Okay." He shakes his head. "But Addison, Seattle? Boston? Can't you just be - _here_?"

"This has nothing to do with you."

"Okay..."

"Do you think everything is about you?"

He studies her. "I think you're dealing with a lot right now-"

"Spare me." She waves a hand. "This is a personal consult, a favor for a friend, and it has nothing to do with you."

"Seattle looking better now?" His voice is soft but his words pierce nonetheless. "Is it really so bad here, Addison, that you're looking back fondly on those days?"

"Stop it." She's told him, of course, about that desperate period of her life, and the last thing she wants is to have it thrown back at her.

"Or are you trying to repeat it, is that it? You want to put me through what you went through?"

"Stop!" The rock in the pit of her stomach is suddenly fire-hot and she hears her voice raise, sees the slightest quiver in her clenched fists.

"This is not the way to fix this, Addison, I'm worried, I get to be worried, I care-"

She lunges at him at this, actually lunges, and it's nothing but hurt pride and instinctual, animal anger; all she wants to do is shut him up, she has no idea what she would have done if she had reached him, but she never has to decide because he captures her arms before she reaches him, wraps them around her and pins her against him.

"Okay, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have - Addison, stop, it's okay."

She struggles, breathing heavily. "Let me go. You bully, just - let _go._"

"I will as soon as you calm down. Stop, Addison, just breathe."

She twists her torso in vain, arms fully immobilized in his. The combination of being pressed so closely against him and the memory of the way he restrained her in Connecticut leaves her dizzy with anxiety, annoyance and, shamefully, a hint of arousal. "Let _go _of me."

"Okay, okay. Are you done?"

She goes still, draws a deep breath. "_Yes_."

He releases her and she turns slowly to face him, the rock in her stomach slowly cooling but no less heavy.

"You still have no right to question what I do." Her voice trembles only slightly, an improvement. She rubs at the flesh on her upper arms.

"I know. I'm sorry. I just don't want to see you get hurt."

"_You_ hurt me, Sam. You."

"You don't think I know that?" He regards her with glistening eyes. "I would give anything to take it back but I can't. That means now I have to sit by and watch you torture yourself? And me?"

She shrugs. "Are you saying you don't deserve it?"

"No, but-"

"No. There's no 'but.' You are _never _going to win this, Sam. You have no upper hand in the fight."

He shakes his head slowly, staring at her.

"What?"

"You really think what I'm trying to win is a fight?"

**ooo**

Sam and Naomi are immersed in conversation in his half open doorway, heads close together, bodies curved away from each other, too deeply engaged to notice her approach or to mask the fact that they are obviously talking about her.

_"She doesn't lose it like that."_

_"I know, but -"_

"I was joking about the tete a tete the other day, but isn't this cozy." She leans against his doorframe, knowing perfectly well that her dress accentuates everything he's no longer permitted to enjoy.

"Addison." Each of them takes an automatic step back.

"No, it's fine, really. Don't stop on my account."

"I'll see you later," Naomi murmurs to Sam and slips out the door with nothing more than a sad glance at Addison.

"What's later? Do you have a date?"

"Addison." Sam rubs a weary hand across his eyes. "Of course not - look, what do you want me to say?"

"I don't want you to say anything." To her embarrassment her eyes fill with tears and she pinches the bridge of her nose, willing them away.

"Are you -"

"Don't you ask me if I'm okay."

He mumbles something and she snaps "excuse me?"

"Nothing. It's just ... you're just so unpredictable right now, Addison. You're angry, you're sad. Push, pull. I'm not complaining," he interrupts himself hastily, "I'm just concerned."

"Don't be. I'm not your concern, Sam."

**ooo**

These are the thoughts that keep her awake.

These are the thoughts she pushes down, tries to sleep because when she can't sleep is when she makes phone calls, and that's what she wants to avoid.

A long-ago lyric pops unbidden into her mind, from somewhere she can't identify. _It was in the early morning hours when I fell into a phone call._

She won't fall this time.

She doesn't call Sam. She doesn't call anyone.

"Are you sleeping better?" he murmurs when she runs into him in the practice kitchen the next morning.

"Do you need a consult, Dr. Bennett?" she asks coldly, shameful enjoyment at the hurt in his eyes.

**ooo**

But seeing him and not being able to touch him - a self-imposed limitation, but a limitation nonetheless - is hard. Especially after a particularly exhausting day of delivering bad news. She sits numbly at her desk, capping and uncapping the same pen.

She leaves for St. Ambrose, does two surgeries to forget, then goes to the one place she hasn't yet tried to make herself feel better.

She cuddles the warmly wrapped bundle close to her chest, lightly pushing against the floor with one navy blue croc until the gentle rocking resumes.

She's held so many babies over the course of her career, one might think she'd be past the rush of tenderness, the sense of wonder at tiny curled fingers, ears like miniature conches, the impossibly small pucker of pink lips. She breathes in the scent, it's medicinal but something else too. She's flooded with the desire to protect. It's biological, she tells herself. Hormonal. Key to the survival of the species. The infant makes a soft sound and she coos back instinctually.

It's hard to imagine Bizzy holding her like this. Did she, ever? Someone must have, Addison thinks. She was a big baby, she knows this - Bizzy told her once in a rather annoyed fashion, after expressing distaste at having to summon the dressmaker to let out a debutante gown. But even the sturdiest of infants needs to be held, nourished, cuddled. With the brutal exception of that last night in the hotel, she has no memory of ever being held by her mother.

It must have been a nanny, she thinks, who held her as an infant, who felt this automatic, powerful rush of tenderness toward her. Who wanted to protect her.

The nannies changed so often, she's not even sure which one it would have been. Inga is the first one she can remember, a hearty German girl who would carry Addison on her shoulders, wouldn't even complain when she fisted her small hands in the nanny's thick hair to keep from falling. But she must have been older then, four or five, because Archer was already in school. Addison would eye his uniform jealously while Inga braided her hair, envying her brother's short pants and little bow tie, wishing she could go with him. Wishing she could be somewhere else.

How strange, she thinks, not even knowing the name of the woman who nursed her through infancy, supported her head and helped her take her first steps. She could be anyone. She could be anywhere.

The baby sleeps peacefully in her arms, the curve of a soft cheek, the tiny chest rising and falling gently against her. It's a rush of hormones, perhaps, but it's potently relaxing; she hadn't realized how exhausted she was, how close to drifting off.

She startles awake as she feels the warm weight of the baby vanish from her body. "What-" Sam is rising from his haunches next to the rocking chair, the swaddled bundle in his arms.

"I had a cardiac patient with an emergent - and Charlotte said you were here, so..." he trails off. "You look exhausted. _Have _you been sleeping?"

She drags a forearm across her eyes, doesn't answer him.

"Baby therapy." He looks past her, at a memory. "When we were interns - do you remember? We used to go to the nursery for a pick me up - you said it was impossible not to have hope, looking at how incredibly small and full of potential those babies were."

"I don't remember."

"Sure you do. It was just the four of us - remember, Mark said he wasn't going to look at the 'after' when he'd rather do the 'before.' So the four of us would go together and you used to say that their little ears - " he pauses to smile at the recollection before continuing - "that their little ears looked just like the miniature shells you used to collect on the beach, when you were a kid. You'd hold them like this -" he dips his head until he's cheek to cheek with the swaddled infant cuddled to his chest- "And you swore when you put your ear next to theirs you could hear the ocean."

"I guess." She looks down at her hands.

"You made us all try it, once. You really don't remember?"

She does remember. Sam was the only one of the other three who said he could hear the ocean too.

He returns the infant to her bassinet now, lightly touching the pink blanket with two fingers before withdrawing. Addison just rocks slowly, silently, heel to toe.

"Did it help, holding the baby?" Sam asks gently.

"Sure," she says woodenly.

_Nothing helps._

But she lets him walk her back to the practice, because he's held up his end of the deal, hasn't pushed her - and because part of being _fine _is being civil, and if she can't do that she can't do anything.

"You're still thinking about babies."

"Now you want to talk about babies?" She laughs mirthlessly. "You screwed your ex-wife, Sam. We're not going to talk about babies."

"Addison. Don't - don't get angry, but just help me understand why you're doing this -" he makes a helpless sort of gesture - "this business with Derek and Meredith?"

So much for the civil walk. "It's my job."

"Your job is _here. _Not trying to impregnate someone in Seattle. What do you think it means that you won't really talk to me, but you'll talk to...them?"

"Maybe it means I'm a good doctor."

"Addison, what is this going to accomplish?"

She tangles her fingers in her hair, groaning. They're walking in circles, chasing each other, still not caught up.

"I don't know, Sam. Maybe helping people who actually want babies to get them is just a nice thing to do."

"Here we go." He stops in front of the door, massages the back of his neck tiredly.

"It all comes back to babies, right, Sam? You slept with Naomi because I asked you for babies."

"No. You know this, Addison," and if possible he sounds even more tired than she does.

"You said no babies," she says steadily. "You took babies from me. So don't ask me why I'm helping other people get their-"

"Addison, I never said never. I never said no babies. I never said that."

She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, tears threatening. "You did."

"No. I said not yet. I said we couldn't move as fast as your biological clock - but I didn't say never."

"Sam-"

"I didn't say never. But we needed to be in the same place, Addison. Not a step away from each other. One of us moving forward, one of us moving back - that's not going to work. We need to be in the same place long enough to figure out how to be a family, together, the two of us. Before we add anyone else. That's all I meant. Not never, just not yet."

She nods, eyes downcast; tentatively, he smooths her hair back from her eyes. She lets him touch her, lets herself enjoy it, just for a second before pulling back.

"Sam-"

"I'm here, Addison. I know I screwed up. But I'm here. When you're here, _if _you get here, you let me know."

She nods.

**ooo**

"Are you all right?" Derek asks when she calls.

"I'm fine," she says. Like there's any other way she'd respond.

She recognizes the way he breathes when he's not sure what to say.

"Addison..." he begins finally but the rest of his sentence is lost in her moody sigh.

"It's probably a good thing I never had kids." She swirls her wineglass, takes a slow sip. "I probably would have just screwed them up too."

"That's not true."

His voice is tender; it makes her head hurt in sharp pains behind her eyes. She presses her fists against her eyes, takes a deep breath.

"I'm sorry I wasn't ready, when you were ready."

"You don't need to apologize," he says softly.

"I should have -I - but I just wasn't ready."

"I know. It's okay."

He's quiet for a moment and she knows he's thinking, as she is, about what it would have been like navigating the mess of the last few years with a child. Or children. Would they still have given up? Would she still have turned to Mark?

Her mind flickers back to Bizzy's gravesite, a series of images flying fast like a newsreel. First it's the archival footage, it's what really happened: she's standing alone, between her father and brother, all ten fingers clamped around the chain of her handbag. Then the handbag's gone; it's the warm pink bundle of a baby she's holding, it's Derek by her side, a child with his dark curls leaning against him. The image flashes and Derek's gone, she's between Archer and the Captain again, a sandy-haired toddler on her hip. The newsreel ends, as quickly as it began, with Derek's voice.

"Addison, I'm not sure it's such a good idea to discuss this right-"

"I'm ready now." She interrupts. "I was ready, and Sam wasn't, and it's probably too late anyway, so..."

"I'm sure it's not too late."

"I think it is. I really do."

"Addison, have you talked to Sam-"

"I can't."

"Maybe it would help-"

"It won't."

**ooo**

But the rock in the pit of her stomach, the one she thought was anger, erupts in the middle of a twenty-eight week sonogram. Gagging and horrified, she drops the wand and staggers out of the exam room and when she emerges from the bathroom, pale and shaking, Amelia is hovering by the door. "What's wrong? You okay, Addie?"

"I'm fine." She's halfway through a shaky breath before she realizes it's not true and lunges for the privacy of her office. Amelia follows, whipping her thankfully empty trash can into her hands just in time, pulls her hair back as she retches. They've only done this in reverse, before.

"What's going on?" Addison ignores the voice in the doorway, her back arching painfully as more spasms overtake her.

"She's fine," Amelia says loyally and Addison loves her even more in that moment.

"Addison." Sam crouches next to her, rests a hand between her shoulder blades. "Are you all right?"

"Just, um-" and she's throwing up again. Sam rubs her back as she heaves; she's too weak in the moment to stop him and the warm weight of his hand feels like it's keeping her from floating away.

She sits up, wipes her face with a shaky hand and a stack of napkins from Amelia's bag. "Sorry. I'm okay."

She sees a look pass between Sam and Amelia. "What?"

"I didn't say anything."

Sam's still rubbing her back; she should tell him to stop, to remember his promise to leave her alone, but she's so exhausted, limbs still shuddering. She wishes she could lay her head somewhere, just for a minute. It's so heavy. Against her better judgment, too tired to stop herself, she relaxes her muscles until her head is just barely resting against Sam's neck, in the spot between his collarbone and his jaw that might as well have her name on it. He just keeps circling her back with one warm palm while she focuses on his breathing, on her breathing, on anything until she can really breathe again.

Then she sits up. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry." He brushes his hand along her hair. "Can I get you anything?"

"No. Thank you. I'm okay..."

Amelia is still perched on the arm of the couch, watching them.

"Amelia," Sam begins. "Could you give us a minute-"

"No, stay," Addison grabs for Amelia's hand. "Sam, thank you for your concern, but I'm fine."

He stills the hand on her back, releases her, but not before lightly touching her cheeks, her forehead, with the backs of his fingers. "You don't feel warm."

"Probably just a bug. Or something I ate."

"Or too much wine on an empty stomach."

"Sam, don't."

"Addison-" he breaks off, gives Amelia a helpless look and she shrugs.

"Take care of yourself," he says. He squeezes her bare knee once before he gets up. "Take better care of yourself, Addison."

"Addie." Amelia props her chin up with her fist, eyes twinkling. "Have you considered..."

Addison leans back against the couch cushions, wishing she had the energy to glare. "Amelia, I'm barren. And mostly celibate. And it's nowhere near Christmas, so..."

"I'm just saying."

"Well, don't say." With significant assistance from the arm of the couch, Addison stands up, tests her legs. They're just strong enough to stand.

"There's no way, Amelia, so let's not even entertain the thought."

**ooo**

She doesn't take her own advice.

Well, she doesn't entertain the thought, not exactly, but there's an hour or two, as she's reviewing the file of a patient in her 36th week, that she weakens, lets the image float for a moment in front of her, long lashes, button nose, skin the color of richly creamed coffee. She closes her eyes, only for a second, and the warmth of an imaginary fist, small and fat, surrounds her finger. She can trace the dimples on the tiny hand.

Only for a second, but it's enough to make the corners of her mouth quirk into an involuntary smile.

Then she sees the stain and remembers why fantasy is such a dangerous thing. Like hope (but she doesn't want to think about hope) it just sets you up for more pain. Better not to think of these things at all. Better to make only the small motions she knows she can get through, until it passes.

Every twenty-nine days, like clockwork, since the tenth grade.

One cycle.

She would never have been surprised - she except that the days and weeks since Connecticut have all blended together. And maybe she's not as good at marking time as she thought.

_Well, that's that_.

**ooo**

She opens the door to find Sam on her step, one fist still half-raised from his last tentative knock, a pale green carrier bag in the other.

He raises his hands slightly. "Don't worry, I won't come in. I just wanted to give you this." He proffers the bag. "Ginger ale. It's the kind you like," he adds, and she recognizes the logo of the natural foods store Sam usually scoffs, where they make sodas to order with freshly ground ginger root.

"Thank you."

"How are you feeling?"

"A little better." She pulls her robe tighter against the breeze.

"Okay." His mouth smiles at her while his eyes crinkle sadly. "I guess I -

"I'm not pregnant."

"What?"

"You were wondering before, weren't you?"

"No, I - well, it's just that you were...nauseous, and..."

"Yeah." She studies her hands. "Anyway. No. I'm definitely...not pregnant."

When she raises her head his dark eyes are so soft, she could lose herself in them. They swim in front of her as unwilling tears fill her own eyes.

He keeps his word. He doesn't come in. Soundlessly and without stepping over her threshold, he leans forward and draws her into his arms. And she lets him, allows her body to relax into his, her cheek falling into place against his neck.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs into her hair, and after the countless times and places he's uttered that phrase over the last miserable month, this particular iteration hits her like a stream of hot water on a frozen surface. Starting with a fissure, it cracks her wide open; gasping, she buries her face against him, giving way to the tears she can no longer restrain. He just wraps her more closely in his arms, toes against the threshold but never crossing it, absorbing her shuddering breaths until his skin goes slippery from her tears. She doesn't know who starts it or even who's leading, but with the doorstep between them they rock gently together from side to side, in sync, a boat on a calming sea.

She pulls back finally, draws a hand across her swollen eyes.

He edges a last tear off her cheek with the pad of his thumb and then cards his fingers gently through her hair, slowly, like he's memorizing it.

"Okay, well, I guess I should-" he breaks off.

"Yeah." She looks down. "Thank you. For the ginger ale."

"Anytime."

She takes a slow, cooling sip as he walks away. It helps.

* * *

**Author's Note 2: **This should clear up the questions from some of you sharp-eyed reviewers back in previous chapters. Please review and let me know your thoughts.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note: **I anticipate about two-three chapters before this is wrapped up. I'm struggling a bit with momentum since the Sam on my screen every Thursday has diverted so much from the Sam of Old. Sigh. At any rate, many many thanks for all reviews and please keep letting me know your thoughts - it's incredibly motivating and very much appreciated. I'm a little anxious about this chapter, so consider it an act of charity to reassure me if you like it (or an act of honesty to scold me if you don't!).

* * *

**The Girl Who Collects Shells - Chapter 8**

* * *

Morning after.

Again.

If she had to choose, she realizes, she'd rather wake up to the recollection of physical nakedness than emotional nakedness. This morning, it's the latter, and shame colors her cheeks as she slides sunglasses over eyes still faintly swollen from the tears of the previous night.

But there's no protection inside the practice; Sam catches her eye in the kitchen, his own eyes shadowed, difficult to read.

"You feeling better?" he asks quietly and she nods slightly in response.

"Addison..." He takes a step closer.

The edge of the counter presses into her spine; she molds chilly fingers around the warm sphere of a coffee mug.

"Sam, I-" she breaks off, seeing Naomi in the doorway. _Great. _"What?" she asks shortly.

"I need a consult."

**ooo**

"You want me to talk a highly anxious pregnant patient into a risky fetal surgery because - "

"Because I don't think she's refusing for the right reasons."

"Well, you're good at knowing what's best for everyone."

"Addie, can we please not make this personal?"

"I'll talk to her, but I'm not promising anything." Addison flips a page back a little harder than necessary. "What about the father?"

"He - isn't here."

"Easier to talk to both of them together. When will he be back?"

"He...won't."

"Single mother?"

"Widow. He ... committed suicide. A month ago. Dierdre is still pretty shaken up, and then to find out about the developmental - " Naomi breaks off. "Look, Addie, I-"

"I said I'd talk to her."

**ooo**

She comes home to an empty house, throws open the sliding back doors and lets the crashing of the waves keep her company as she unwinds. She props her chin in one fist, drains a glass of wine with the other. Drinks another, until her eyelids grow heavy.

Then she's in the elevator again at the facelessly elegant hotel, doors sliding open. Her heels are sinking slightly into the ivory plush carpet. The aroma of freshly crushed beans surrounds her. She slides the key out of the silk lining of one pocket, listens for the mechanical click of the lock and-

She jumps when the phone rings, startling her awake, head snapping back. She rubs at the crick in her neck, inhaling sharply against the pounding of her heart.

"Addison? Did I wake you?"

"What? No, of course not."

It's Derek, returning her call. She needs to set up a time to speak with Meredith again, that's the ostensible reason, but instead she asks:

"Do you remember Sam and Naomi's wedding?"

"Sure," he says. "Pennsylvania, right? Very humid. You wore that green dress - that was a great dress. And then we threw Sam and Nai in the lake-"

"It seems like a long time ago."

"Yeah, well, it was."

"I never thought they'd get divorced." She tips the half-empty bottle of wine toward her glass. "They just seemed - I don't know."

"Most people don't plan to get divorced. Not at the beginning." He pauses. "You talking to Sam again?"

"Not exactly," she says.

"Did, um, did something else happen?"

She considers, briefly, telling him about the fleeting moment she thought she might be - but decides against it.

She had a pregnancy scare once during their marriage. Only once.

"I'm late," she'd murmured to Derek over breakfast. They still had breakfast together then, at least some of the time. Or at least coffee. "Me too," he'd said, pushing his mug away and jumping up. "You don't mind if I run, do you?"

She'd rolled her eyes. "_Late_, Derek," and his eyes had sprung wide in shock. "Oh. _Oh._" In retrospect, she never needed to tell him. Her non-pregnant status had announced itself by later that afternoon. She caught up to him after a surgery, whispered the news. "I didn't want you to worry over nothing," she explained. And then, "What?" she'd asked, rather defensively, at the expression in his eyes she couldn't quite identify. "I thought you'd be relieved too."

He'd just blinked. "I am," he said and kissed her cheek. "Don't wait for me to leave tonight. I won't finish up until late."

"No, nothing happened," she says now. And because she can't keep her voice steady if they talk about this, she distracts him with questions about work, marginally soothed when he responds. She props her feet up, cradles her wineglass, wonders about how wrong she was when she thought his was the voice she would hear for the rest of her life.

**ooo**

She's giving followup instructions to the lab tech the next morning when Sam walks by, stopping just as she's confirming what to do with the Grey scans.

"You're still working on Meredith Grey?"

"Yes, I am," she says simply. "Derek asked me to help. And it still has nothing to do with you."

"You're still calling him, talking to him, his...wife - Addison, what are you doing? I thought we - why are you moving backwards?"

"I'm helping his _wife,_" she spits the word "because I'm a doctor. And I'm calling him because - because - why are we still talking about this, Sam? It's got nothing to do with you."

"Oh, really."

The lab tech has ducked out by this point, stammering an excuse about delivering results, and alone in the room with Sam she feels free to raise her voice. "Don't you _dare_," she snaps. "_You _cheated on me."

"You left me first," he says fiercely. "You always leave, Addison, I can't hold on to you. You're ten steps ahead, or you're five steps behind. You - you won't even let me try."

"Don't give me that."

"We're never in the same place because you're always moving. You don't stand still. You're going to Boston, now-"

"I don't know if I'm going there," she interrupts.

"But you're not _here. _Addison, I wanted to be there for you. I tried to be there. You didn't need me. So I came back here. And I missed you, and Naomi was there, and she... she needed me."

She makes a noise of disgust at this and says "I know how it sounds. I know. But she needed me and - just for a minute, Addison, just for a _second _I needed someone to need me back."

"You want to be needed so badly, get a dog."

"Addison-"

Naomi, in her second ill-timed appearance in two days. This time both Addison and Sam bark "what?" in unison.

"I'm sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to know if you'd spoken to my patient yet-"

"She doesn't want the surgery."

"You talked to her?"

"I talked to her and she doesn't want the surgery."

"But did you tell her -"

"Rumor is I'm pretty good at my job, Naomi. So I think I've got the consult covered without your help."

Naomi glances at Sam, who is standing between them. "Without intervention, the valve-"

Sam shakes his head.

Naomi turns back to Addison. "Look, Addie, I know this is probably ... a difficult case for you, but we can't let that interfere with-"

Sam throws her a sharp look and she falls silent.

"Excuse me?" Addison feels her heart speed up, closes her hand around the solid edge of the chair back.

"I just meant, I understand that it's ... personal, for you, because of your...mother, but I'm just not sure-"

She whirls on Sam.

"You told her."

"No," he says firmly. "No, I told you I didn't-"

"And you're a real man of your word, Sam," she spits. "Then how does she-"

"_Addison_, that's not fair. If you want to know how she knows, why don't you ask her instead of automatically blaming me? You're so quick to think I'd hurt you-"

"I wonder why," she snaps.

"Addie," Naomi begins tentatively and they both turn on her, Addison having forgotten for a moment that she's there.

"Don't you dare," Addison says evenly and stalks out, leaving both Bennetts behind.

**ooo**

Addison finds the only other person who knows her secret. She's resting a hip against her desk, flipping through a notebook with Cooper by her side. He says something to make her laugh, lightly, just as Addison walks in.

"You told Naomi?" Addison demands. "What exactly do you have against me, Charlotte?"

"Hey," Cooper starts to intercede.

"It's fine, Coop." Charlotte puts a hand on his arm. "Woman talk. Give us a minute."

He takes the hint and exits the office, but not without throwing a warning look at Addison, which she returns with another glare. It's not like she has a lot of friends left at this place anyway.

"All right then," Charlotte says calmly once they're alone. "What are you accusing me of this time, Montgomery?"

"Naomi knows about my mother."

"Well, she didn't hear it from me."

"It's not like you hesitated to tell her about Boston."

"Look, Addison, I told you in Connecticut your secret was safe with me and I meant it. I haven't told a soul and I certainly don't plan to. Your mother, that's personal. But Boston? Boston's business."

"I'm sorry?"

"I find out my supposed business partner might be hauling across the country because half this sorry group can't keep it in their pants long enough to focus on practicing medicine - well, that's business. It's my business. So why don't you ask Naomi how that little conversation came about."

"I'm not speaking to her."

Charlotte shakes her head. "It's a wonder we see any patients at all at this rate."

**ooo**

"Just admit that you told her." Addison walks into Sam's office without knocking.

He doesn't look up from the papers on his desk. "Go away, Addison."

She blinks. "What?"

"I said go away. I'm tired, too. I'm tired of this."

"You're the one who keeps trying to talk to _me_!"

"And what good has it done? Every time I think we're moving forward - that maybe we've taken a step or - look, you want to think I told Naomi, then fine. Think that. I'm not dealing with you right now."

"Sam-"

He returns to his papers. "Go away, Addison," he says again, and she does.

**ooo**

She's sitting at her desk, wondering how the same person can yank the rug from under you over and over again, when she hears a soft knock on her open door.

"Can we talk?" She looks up to see Naomi in the doorway.

"You need another consult you can second-guess?"

"Addie, please. Every time I try to talk to you I put my foot - I don't want to fight with you."

"I don't want to fight either." Addison leans back in her chair. "I don't want to talk at all."

"We've had almost twenty years, Addison. You can't give me twenty minutes?"

"Ten."

"Fine."

Naomi closes the door behind her, paces a few steps and stops.

"Look, it wasn't gossip, Addie, it was never gossip. Do you know what Charlotte said to me, about Boston?"

"No, and I don't want to know."

Naomi tells her anyway: "She said 'Fix this. Montgomery leaves the practice and there won't be anything left to fix. So fix what you broke before it's too late.'"

"I think it's already too late."

"Addie, people make mistakes. I've made them. You've made them. But I know life is too short not to at least try to fix what I've broken."

Naomi sits on the couch uninvited, smooths her skirt over her legs while Addison regards her silently. "Truth?"

Addison lifts her chin in a half nod.

"I used to wish sometimes that you'd never come to California. That you'd stayed away. We could have exchanged Christmas cards, maybe had you out to the beach house once in a while, but that's it."

Naomi's mouth hangs open for a moment after she finishes, looking surprised that she actually said the words. Addison's not surprised. Naomi's just the latest in a long line of people who've been all too ready to let her know they wished she'd never shown up.

"That's...sweet, Nai. So is this your idea of fixing things?"

"I'm trying to be honest. I'm trying to explain to you why it's complicated, this _Sam _thing."

"I don't want to talk about Sam with you."

"Then what do you want to talk about?"

"Trick question, Nai - I don't want to talk to you at all."

"To work together, we have to talk."

"Yes - about medicine."

"That doesn't seem to work, either."

"What do you want from me, Naomi?"

"Your mother-"

"Don't you dare bring that up."

"I just wanted to say how sorry I am that-"

"Well, don't."

Naomi looks down at her hands. "It wasn't Sam, okay? It was Archer. Archer told me what happened."

"Excuse me?"

"Archer told me. I called him to see how he was coping -"

How he was coping? They're Montgomeries. Coping is what they do.

"Leave my brother alone," Addison says shakily.

"He's an adult, and he certainly wasn't asking me to leave him alone in Connecticut. He's my friend, and I-"

"What is this, revenge, or - I can't believe you." Addison shakes her head. "I can't. You stay _away_ from my family, Naomi."

"Like you stayed away from mine?"

"That's not fair."

"I called him," Naomi repeats, her voice trembling a little bit, "and he told me what happened, that Bizzy k-"

"Get out."

"Addison, I'm not trying to upset you, I'm sorry-"

"Get _out _of my office, Naomi."

"Addie, I can't imagine how hard this has been - Archer said you won't tell anyone, but he just assumed you'd told me - he doesn't know that we're - can you please just let me explain-"

She doesn't. She leaves herself, since Naomi won't, sweeping past her, past the half-filled kitchen, watchful eyes over coffee cups following her progress, past Sam who is attempting to be unobtrusive leaning against the wall, keeps walking until she's in her car, doors locked, with her forehead pressed against the mercifully cool leather of the steering wheel.

She looks up at a knock on the passenger side window. Sam.

She ignores it and he knocks again. She rolls the window down a few inches.

"You have a patient," he says, his tone cool and impersonal. "Do you want to reschedule?"

"I'll be there in a minute," she says and Sam has to jerk his chin back quickly as the window slides up again.

**ooo**

"You really wish I'd never moved out here?"

Naomi doesn't look surprised to see her, like she's been waiting to finish the conversation.

"Sometimes. You just - you take up a lot of the air in the room, Addie."

Addison sits down on the couch. "Tell me how you really feel, Nai," she says drily.

"Oh come on, Addie, you know it as well as I do. You were always a step ahead of me. You're the star, I'm second banana. You and Derek were the med school golden couple; Sam and I were your sidekicks. I thought about doing that second fellowship, but I had a toddler at home. You always came out on top. And the one thing I had that you didn't - I screwed up."

"You didn't screw up with Maya," Addison says softly.

"Don't - you think I wanted my little girl to be a 16-year-old statistic? That Sam and I wanted to be 41-year-old grandparents - " her voice breaks off. "I know I screwed up. The nights I could have gone home but there were things to do here, or - she wasn't always my first priority, okay? But I _love_ her," she says fiercely. "She is a part of me and a part of Sam and - Addison, you sat there with my baby granddaughter in your arms and told me how you'd like to have my ex-husband's child..." she trails off.

Addison flushes at the memory, folding her fingers. "I didn't think -"

"-that it would hurt me? That you were _ripping _my heart out? I tried to be supportive, Addie, I tried to be a good friend to you and to Sam but that-" she shakes her head, her voice thick. "That was too much. I just - how was I supposed to handle the idea that having Sam's baby would be one more thing you'd do better than I could?"

"Naomi, I..."

Naomi holds a hand up to stop her. "Do you think there's anything left?" she asks. There are tears in her eyes. "Between us, I mean."

"I don't know," Addison whispers.

**ooo**

She waits for a moment alone with Sam to say "I know you weren't the one who told Naomi."

He just looks at her.

"I'm sorry I assumed you did," she says unsteadily, "but considering-"

"'I'm sorry but' isn't much of an apology. I would know, since I've been doing nothing but apologizing for the last six weeks."

"No one asked you to keep apologizing!"

"I can't be your punching bag tonight, Addison, I'm sorry. Let me get a decent night's sleep, maybe a little less of the drama at work, and I'll be back on my game. You can yell at me tomorrow. But I can't do this right now."

"I...don't understand what's going on."

"I know the feeling," he says and picks up the telephone receiver, half-turning away to dial a call.

She stands in his doorway and lets the realization wash over her that she isn't alone with Sam - she's just alone.

**ooo**

"My brother called for you." Amelia lifts an eyebrow as Addison, fresh from a bath that didn't help nearly as much as she'd hoped, descends the stairs in shorts and bare feet.

"Oh?"

"I picked up your phone," Amelia shrugs.

"And what did he say?"

"He said..." Amelia furrows her brow, remembering, "He said 'I still don't understand how Addison got stuck with custody of you in the divorce.'"

Addison snorts. "Charming."

"Well, you know him."

"I do," she says.

"So?"

"So what?"

"So what's with all this post-divorce chit-chat, Addison?"

"You're the one who took the call, Amelia."

"I'm not talking about tonight. I'm talking about yesterday. The day before. Three times last week. The week before-"

"You looked at my call history?" she asks, annoyed.

"No," Amelia says slowly, staring at her. "These are just my always-insightful observations from, you know, _living with you._"

"Did you say something to Sam? About - the calls?"

"What? No."

"_Amelia_."

"_Addison_," she says, mimicking her tone. "I didn't say a word to Sam about my brother. Why would I? But a word of advice, Addie? Speaking as an addict, when two people who love you confront you with the same thing, we like to refer to that as 'not exactly a coincidence.'"

The nerve, describing Sam as a person who loves her.

"It doesn't concern you," she says. "And I'm really not in the mood for this discussion."

"Addison, what are you doing?" Amelia asks loudly. "Sam fucks his ex, so you-"

"That is _enough._" Her voice is low, but it's clipped and brooks no argument. She sounds, she realizes, like her mother. "Stop talking, right now, before you say something you can't take back."

Amelia nods, looks away, swallowing hard, and when she meets Addison's gaze again her eyes are shining with tears.

"I'm the Shepherd you're supposed to talk to, Addie." Addison's not even sure she recognizes the tone, so rare is it coming from her former sister-in-law, but there it is: hurt.

"Me," Amelia repeats. "_I'm _the one who's still here."

**ooo**

She finds Amelia by the water, sitting on an overturned kayak. A gentle breeze moves her hair; from the back, she might still be the teenager Addison first met so many years ago.

"I'm sorry," Amelia says without turning around.

Addison picks her way across the sand and drops down next to her, the boat creaking slightly as she adds her weight.

"Don't apologize," Addison says quietly. "I really need a minute where no one apologizes to me."

Amelia nods. "I know that you're in pain. Don't-" she says before Addison can interrupt her, still looking straight out across the water. "Please just don't say you're not. I know pain, Addie, and I know what it can do to you. My counselor used to say it's - it's like an air pocket in the sheets when you're making the bed, you can push it down and around and try to make it look okay, but it will just pop up somewhere else until you actually let it out. You chase it around stifling it whenever it tries to breathe so you don't have to actually _be _in it.

"I came to California for you," she says. "I stayed for you. I'm not saying I wouldn't miss the man candy if Sam moved away, but it's you, Addie. I don't have a dog in that fight."

A curtain of dark hair hides her expression. Addison moves it gently off her face, tucks it behind her ear. Amelia is always so loud, so larger than life, that Addison forgets sometimes how small she really is, the delicate seashell ears, narrow shoulders, soft little paws disappearing into Addison's long, strong fingers.

To her surprise, there are tears on Amelia's lashes now, shimmering in the reflected moonlight. "I really am sorry that you're going through this. I just think if you talk about-"

"My mother killed herself," Addison interrupts quietly, looking out at the ocean. "It wasn't a heart attack or an aneurysm. She killed herself, and she asked me to hide it."

"Oh." Amelia turns toward her, eyes wide.

"Sam knows. Your brother, my brother, Charlotte saw the paperwork, and today I found out Naomi knows too. I haven't done such a great job with this secret."

"Addison-"

"Turns out Nai always wished I hadn't moved out here. And Sam threw me out of his office today. I guess he's done waiting for me to come around. Looks like you're all I've got, kid." She tries to laugh but it doesn't come out quite right.

Amelia squeezes Addison's hand, so much strength in those small deft fingers. "Addie, that's not-"

"Please, Amelia. Stop talking."

So Amelia just hunches next to her, little and silent.

Addison sighs, slings an arm around Amelia's back, and pulls her into the crook of her shoulder. They sit like that for a long time, just watching the waves.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Girl Who Collects Shells - Chapter 9**

* * *

**Author's Note: **First, thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing - I can't tell you how gratifying I find it. (Particularly you anonymous reviewers, since I can't reply to you and say thank you. So, thank you!) Moving on, I'm going to come right out and admit that I like this wordy monster of a chapter. I hope you will too, and that you'll let me know what you think. I'm saddened by what's happened to Sam's character on screen, and so I'm getting a fair bit of escapist solace from writing my own Sam. I just hope you guys are getting something in return from reading him. So, here we go...

* * *

Sam's at the hospital half the next day dealing with an emergency - this is what she overhears, unavoidably, in the kitchen, when she chokes down green juice in lieu of lunch and scrolls through her blackberry messages in lieu of conversation. It registers, because awkward run-ins have been mercifully lacking from her morning.

And, it turns out, from her afternoon. In fact, she makes it through the entire day without seeing him. It's not until evening, when she leaves the silence of her house, bottle of wine in her hands like an offering, for the quiet of her back deck, that she becomes aware of him once again. It's just the top part of the back of his head that's visible, and barely so, but the pungent scent of barbecuing fish and the charcoal fumes of his grill waft over the fence with little respect for the boundaries between their real estate.

Almost unconsciously she moves closer to the fence; almost imperceptibly, he turns in place towards her.

She swallows hard, not sure what she's doing, and then he turns all the way around. His eyes are serious but he's holding a spatula in one hand, lessening the effect.

He looks at her and she forces herself to speak first, heart fluttering slightly with anticipated rejection. _How did we get here? _she wishes she could ask. Instead she says: "Smells good."

"Thanks." He nods briefly, turns back to the heartily smoking grill.

"Are you, uh...are you talking to me?" She hears - and resents - the slight quiver in her voice.

"Of course I'm talking to you." His back is to her, his tone patient but tired.

"Oh," she says, at a loss, fingers curling without purpose around the rim of the fence.

"You can be such an extremist, Addison," he mutters, still not turning around.

"Is that your polite way of calling me a drama queen?"

He shakes his head. "I couldn't talk to you yesterday. That doesn't mean I can't talk to you today. 'Not now' doesn't mean 'not ever,' Addison - not everything is so black and white." He half turns to face her now. "I was frustrated yesterday, okay? This is hard for me too. But 'I can't deal with this right now' means just that. Just like 'no babies now' didn't mean 'no babies ever,'" he adds, voice dropping.

She's silent, considering this. In her experience, "not now" _is _just a gentler way of saying "never." Likewise "I don't know when." She's spent months before waiting for something that never passed.

"It's not all or nothing. Not every time, anyway," he continues.

She nods, because it's easier than arguing.

_We didn't even make time to fight anymore_. The thought rises in her mind uninvited. Is that where they're heading? She realizes, with a sinking feeling that makes her dig the toes of her bare feet harder into the deck planks, that she can't begin to anticipate where they're heading because she has no idea where they are. And she doesn't like the feeling.

"Addison," he says, and the intensity of his tone breaks into her thoughts, catching her off balance yet again.

"What are you making?" she interrupts, and he lets her divert them with only a slight grimace.

"Grilled tuna. A fruit slaw _thing_-" he gestures "-with jicama." His teeth flash white in the slowly sinking sun.

"Sounds good." Truthfully, she misses his cooking.

"Have you eaten?"

She shakes her head. She's tired, too tired to think about food. There's the half-empty bottle of wine waiting for her at the table, a half-full glass of it resting on the ledge beside her, and that's all she needs.

She folds her arms on the fence between them as he approaches.

"Here." He stops just shy of his side of the fence and extends his fork. "Taste."

It's a dance they've done a hundred times before, though she hadn't fully anticipated the intimacy of it. Her eyes flutter closed automatically as he slides the tines of the fork between her parted lips. The flavors blend perfectly in her mouth, the sweet burst of mango, the tartness of lime, the bright flavor of fresh cilantro and the meaty charcoal flakes of fish. The jicama crunches satisfyingly between her teeth. She opens her eyes slowly to see Sam watching for her reaction. "Pretty good," she says throatily, tongue darting free to lick a sunny shred of fruit from the corner of her mouth. His grin is saucy and self-satisfied, the familiar look of pride at the effect he knows he has on her.

"You, uh, you want a plate?"

She starts to demur and he adds "I made extra."

"Okay, I guess. Thanks."

He passes a filled dish across the fence and she accepts it, brings it to the table with her wine and eats slowly, savoring each bite. She hadn't realized how hungry she was. She sits by herself in comfortable, ocean-scented silence. Amelia won't be back from her meeting for hours, and the faint clicks of silverware against ceramic are the only sounds emanating from Sam's side of the fence. Balancing the food with long sips of full-bodied wine, she lets herself relax in the dim glow of the beachlights. Somehow, she feels less alone than she has in a while.

**ooo**

She slides into his office the next day before he can rebuff her but his eyes, though slightly hooded, are welcoming, and he beckons for her to sit.

"I don't...really know where we are," she confesses, crossing her legs. She's tired, can't even remember the last time she's slept well. Probably - though she'd never admit this - it wasn't alone. Last night it was fits and starts, half-realized dreams that smelled of freshly ground coffee beans and soft calfskin luggage.

"I'm here." He leans back in his chair. "Where are you?"

"I guess that's the question."

"Look, Addison, you don't...you don't have to forgive me for everything, not all at once. Maybe just a little."

Her brow furrows. "What do you mean?"

"You want space, I know that. You don't want to be ... together, okay ... and you're still angry, but we can be friends, Addison. If you want. You can forgive me just enough to be friends again."

She toys with the buttons on the end of her cuffs. It's not something she's really considered. Which makes her wonder, is Sam right that she's been too black and white about all of this?

"Friends...you mean, like before? Like none of this ever happened?"

"No." He shakes his head firmly. "That would be going backwards. All of this did happen, so... but we can try to be friends moving forward. Or something."

"Sam..."

"No pressure. Just a thought."

"Friends," she repeats.

"We could."

"Okay," she says slowly. "As friends, I want to tell you that I'm flying to Boston tonight."

**ooo**

"Sam!" She follows him down the hall, ignoring Cooper's whisper as she passes (_Mom and Dad are fighting again._)

"Sam, I thought we were talking-"

"How can we talk if you run away?"

"That's not what I-" she casts a quick glance at their audience, and with a sigh of annoyance grasps Sam by his shirtsleeve and tugs him toward her office.

Closing the door behind her, she folds her arms over her chest. "I'm _trying_ to explain, Sam. It's for an interview, that's all. Just to see the space, and..." she trails off. "I'm flying to Boston tonight," she repeats.

"You asked _me _where we were, Addison - I'm here, and you, you're on a plane."

"Sam." She sighs. "They want to interview me and I - well, I want to be interviewed. I don't know, okay? This could be the next chapter for me. I don't know, and I - I think I owe it to myself to at least look before I decide. Don't you think so?"

His expression is grim.

"It's just two days, Sam. I'll be back."

"I hope so," he says quietly.

"I thought we were going to be friends." Her voice slides into a higher register. "Is that offer only good if I do what you want?"

"That's not fair, Addison," he says softly. "I have tried not to push, tried hard. And friends, friends is great, but can you just - I'm holding onto hope here and I don't know if I should be. I don't know if you'd even tell me if I should let go. Would you?"

The word _hope_ brings a faint buzz to her ears. She shakes her head slightly, pushing down the thoughts she doesn't want to think, the things she doesn't want to remember. Sheldon and Amelia are wrong, she's quite sure of this, quite sure that nothing could be worse than helplessly letting pain wash over her. She's stronger than that, she's _better _than that. She's a Montgomery, so she just presses her lips together to give Sam a cool smile.

"I appreciate that you've been trying not to push. And the...friends thing. That's _why _I'm telling you that I'm leaving for Boston tonight, and I'll be gone for two days, and - it is what it is, Sam."

He lets her go. And she pretends she doesn't hear him when he says lowly as she retreats: "I'll still be here when you get back."

**ooo**

She's anxious, zipped as tight as the overnight bag packed in her office. She's _fine_, but warring factions of her brain tug her from angry to sad and back again, order her to kick Sam, or kiss him, or both, until she can't take it anymore and tracks Sheldon to the elevator.

"I'm not going to your office," Addison announces, pressing the door-close button vigorously. "I don't want to talk. And you're not billing me for this. I just have one question and you have four floors to answer it."

"Okay," Sheldon nods. "I'll accept your terms. Go ahead."

"Those five stages of grief that you people are always talking about - do they have to go in order, or can they be all at once?"

"Technically, that's a compound question - but yes, a person can experience more than one stage at a single time," he finishes quickly at her glare.

"Thank you," she says as the doors slide open.

"Do you want to talk about which stages of grief you're experiencing?" he calls after her.

She presses the door open with one elbow. "Unless you want to find out if Louboutin prints would improve the pattern of your tie," she says in her most polite tone, casting an appraising look at said tie "- and I really think that the possibility for improvement exists - then no, I do _not_ want to tell you which stages I am experiencing."

"I suppose 'anger' would be one of them," she hears him murmur as the clink shut.

**ooo**

And sadness, her tear ducts on overdrive sometimes, underdrive other times, since Bizzy's suicide.

"I thought you were flying out tonight?" Sam pokes his head into her office and she hastily brushes lingering moisture from her cheeks.

"Delayed. High winds."

"You talked to Naomi," he says quietly, closing the door behind him and leaning against it.

She looks down at her lap. "Yeah."

"Was it..."

"It was pretty much what I expected, I guess."

"She's not exactly crazy about me either," Sam offers, and Addison glances up at his words.

"She's not?"

"No. You know, I think she blames me for...this." He spreads his hands out, indicating all three of them, the remnants of two friendship, two relationships, or perhaps something even bigger.

"She, uh, she told me you weren't the one who told her about Bizzy." _Among other things._

"I wish you'd believed me when I said the same thing."

She can't bring herself to apologize again. "I'm sure you can understand why I-"

"It's not that I don't understand. It's that I said I didn't tell her. Because I didn't. I have _never _lied to you, Addison, not once. Not about anything." At her silence he keeps going.

"Do you know why I told you in the car, when you came back from Connecticut, about what happened with Naomi?"

Another day she'd rather not remember.

She tugs viciously at the catch on her bracelet. "To torture me?" she asks. "To make yourself feel better? How should I know?"

"Because I couldn't lie to you, Addison. I couldn't sit there with you right next to me and pretend that nothing happened. You deserved the truth."

"Like I deserved to be cheated on?"

"That's not what I mean and you know that. Now, I've apologized. Up and down and every time you've let me speak to you. I can't do anything to take it back; if I could, I would. I'm _sorry, _Addison. I messed up. People mess up. I can apologize more. If it will help. Do you want me to apologize again?"

She doesn't answer.

Instead she rises and walks forward slowly until her fingers can just graze his cheek, tracing the familiar line of his jaw. He's standing very still, like she's a foal he's trying not to startle.

"Stop apologizing," she whispers, and closes the remaining inches between them. Her lips brush his, not long but slow enough to savor it. He's sliding his hands into her hair, deepening the contact, when she breaks away.

"What was that?"

"I'm not sure."

Kick him or kiss him. Warring factions. Damn Sheldon for not offering a workable solution.

"Addison-"

"I have to go. I have a flight to catch." As she pushes past him he's stroking his bottom lip with his thumb, an expression in his eyes she can't identify.

"Addison, wait."

She turns around.

"Do you think I _wanted _to tell you like that? That I didn't wish I could just keep it to myself, just pretend and let you be happy to see me? You were - you looked so happy to see me-"

She flushes at this.

"-and it killed me to tell you, Addison, it killed me. It wasn't about unburdening myself - you needed to know. Anything other than _right now_ would have been a lie."

She drags a hand across her eyes. "Do you want a medal, Sam? Best Performance by a Cheating Boyfriend?"

"Stop," he says. "This distancing...just stop. This is what you do, Addison. You pull me in and then you shut me out. Then you reach out to other people instead. The wrong people -"

"No-"

"_Yes._" He says sharply and she jumps slightly at his tone. "The wrong people, Addison. People who hurt you."

"_You _hurt me."

"Addison..."

"What? You think you're any better than him?"

"Better for you," he says simply. "Yes. I do."

The sheer gall. She tries to stalk past him and he catches her arm right above the elbow, just tight enough to force her to look at him.

"Don't do this, Addison. Stop chasing the past, or some - fantasy future and just be _here_ for once. Just deal with me."

She pulls her arm out of his grasp. "Manhandling me won't work twice, Sam."

He massages his temples as a vein in his neck jumps. "You ever doubt how I feel about you, just listen to some of the things I take from you."

"No one's forcing you to be here. _You're_ the one who wanted to be friends. I asked you to leave me alone."

"Yeah," he says. "You did, a few times. And then you showed up at my house and tore my clothes off. You call me in the middle of the night. We talk about being friends, and then you kiss me. Forgive me if the mixed messages are getting harder to interpret, Addison. I'm out of practice."

"Maybe Naomi can help," she says acidly.

"Look at me. Addison-" she looks, reluctantly. "I messed up. I _know _that. I have taken whatever you've needed to dish out here. Keep it up. Go ahead and push all you want, pull all you want, I'm not going anywhere. I wouldn't even mind if I thought it was helping you instead of tearing you apart."

"Don't flatter yourself, Sam."

"I love you," he says softly, her hand flying up seconds too late to stop him.

"Please don't say that."

"I won't say it again." His eyes are very dark, watching her. "Not if you don't want me to. But I needed to say it once, before you left."

"I have to go. I'm going to miss my flight."

**ooo**

The world feels easier to understand at 35,000 feet. It's a thought she's had before, on planes, in cars, trains, safe enclosed spaces with soft seats and no one confronting with her questions harder than _champagne or orange juice_? It's the familiar thought that she could stay here forever, that the vehicle could just keep moving, carrying her somewhere, lulling her to sleep and never touching the ground again. And that would be okay.

Maybe it's not okay. Maybe _she's_ not okay. But that's not a thought she's willing to consider, so she pushes it aside. _That's _easier to do at 35,000 feet too.

She's always liked flying for the freedom it affords, allowing her to carry only her actual baggage and leave the metaphorical baggage behind. Her past. Her mistakes. Tossed before she clears security like a stray set of nail clippers. Ensconced in the soft leather seat, she is nothing except her physical body, her current thoughts, only what will fit in the small square column of air from the curved arc of the roof to the industrial carpet beneath her heels, from the window on one side to the empty seat next to her. A space too small to get lost in, a space too small to lose.

Not without a certain amount of shame she relishes the redeye for one fewer sleep in her own achingly empty bed. Her seat on the plane, tilted a full 180 degrees if she wants, bears no lingering memory of a missing companion, and her cell phone is safely shut off in her purse. She's not falling into a phone call tonight. She's not even falling asleep. She's not anything.

When the plane lands, she's delivered directly into the waiting car; a shower and a pot of butler-delivered coffee drunk in haste in an oversized bathrobe sufficing for the night swallowed by the 747. Then she's enmeshed in the chattering throng of the search committee. They give her the tour, pepper her with facts and figures and excitement, wine and dine her (mostly wine, for her) and then she's alone in an enormous white bed in a hotel suite much larger than she needs. It's spring in Boston, new leaves lining the trees of the Common just outside her window. Inside the hotel suite, indistinguishable from so many others, she could be anywhere or nowhere at all.

She's swimming in the fluffy duvet, propped on four pillows, when her blackberry buzzes.

"Derek, it's - late."

"It's not even ten," he objects and she realizes in her sleepy haze that he'd have no idea she's crossed the country. Cell phones do that, they give you that heady mix of freedom and secrecy. You can call people anywhere but you can't pin them down.

"Right," she says quickly. No need for details. "I, uh, I heard you talked to Amelia."

"I can't believe she's living with you."

"It's great," Addison says. "_She's _great. You should...you should get to know her again, Derek."

"I forgave her." His tone is indignant. "Didn't Amy tell you I forgave her?"

Addison knows all too well what the receiving end of Derek's _forgiveness _feels like. Obligation. It's nothing, nothing like his love. To Derek she says "Yeah. She told me."

"So you're still not talking to Sam?" he asks.

"Sort of. Not really."

He's silent, and she can just _feel _him judging her down the phone line.

"You're taking his side?" She's incredulous. "After what you - I mean, _really_, Derek?"

"I'm not taking anyone's side."

"What, then?"

"I just don't want you to regret not giving him a real chance," he says finally.

"Too late for that."

"Addison. It's what, not even two months since you lost your mother, you know they say you shouldn't make any major life changes for six months after a loss like-"

"He made this change! Not me!" It's a yell, louder than she intended.

"Okay, Addie. Okay," and his placating tone is so painfully familiar. She misses him. For just a minute, she lets herself miss him. Wraps herself in the ache, like his arms.

"Do you regret not giving me a real chance?"

As soon as the words are out she wishes she could take them back. Her cheeks burn with embarassment.

He draws an audible breath.

"Addie..."

"Forget I said that," she says quickly.

"Addison..."

"_Please_, Derek."

"Okay," he says. "All right. Consider it forgotten."

**ooo**

It's almost four a.m., she's wrapped in sleep and the unfamiliar hotel bed when the phone blares her out of a half-remembered dream. She struggles to wake, not answering until the sixth ring.

He starts talking without preamble.

"Of course I regret things," he says abruptly. "What happened to our marriage, my part in it. The way it ended. Hurting you."

"It's - Derek, it's the middle of the night." Three hours later for her. How appropriate, she thinks for a flash of an ungenerous second, that she's going to feel the sting of exhaustion more acutely than Derek will. How very like them both.

"I _do _have regrets, Addison. I do. But I - I've learned things too. I'm a good husband now, this time. It's better. _I'm_ better."

"I'm so glad I could help," she says acidly, fully awake now.

"No, I mean - that's not what I - " she hears the scotch on his tongue, probably not enough to alter his judgment, but enough to broaden it. It's three hours earlier there, she remembers. "I just, I'm in the right place now. I know I am," he says. "And-"

"I like Meredith," Addison interrupts, because she's not sure how much more of this she can take and also because, if she's going to be honest, it's true. And it feels surprisingly okay to say it out loud. Good, even.

"Well," Derek says. "I've always had impeccable taste in women."

"Ass," she smiles.

"We were good together, Addie," he blurts. "You and I. We were _so good_, once. And maybe, if we had fought for it, but - we didn't."

"Yeah," she says after a while. "Yeah, I know."

"So, what I was trying to say is if you want to be with Sam, get up and fight for it."

"And if I don't?"

"Then find someone who deserves you," he says simply. "And fight for him instead."

She's quiet, thinking about this.

"And, Addie?"

"Hm?"

"Feel free to branch outside of our med school class."

She can hear him chuckle faintly at his own joke - he's always done that - and she's smiling a little more now too in spite of herself.

"That's lovely, Derek. Really. Very amusing. I'm going back to sleep now, if you don't mind. Good night."

"Good night, Addison."

**ooo**

She strides through LAX, sunglasses firmly planted on her nose. The last time she walked through this airport somehow feels like both a lifetime ago, and like it was yesterday, all at once. She juggles handbag, overnight bag and blackberry, hoping Amelia remembered to confirm the driver as she'd requested.

"Addison!"

He's waiting for her at arrivals, compact and handsome, a smile of welcome that doesn't quite reach his shadowed eyes.

She freezes two feet from him, causing the man behind her to bump her bag with his and mutter with annoyance.

"What are you doing here, Sam?"

"Picking you up," he says simply.

"I - there's a car meeting me ..."

"I cancelled it." Amelia saunters up, hands Addison a paper cup holding, by the weight of it, a latte. "How was Boston? Freezing and snooty, I bet? And you didn't sign anything, right-"

"Amelia," Sam cuts in firmly. "You agreed..."

Amelia rolls her eyes. "Fine. Never mind." She stands on tiptoe and kisses Addison on the cheek. "Welcome home, Addie."

Addison just stands there, bags clenched in her frozen fingers. Sam leans in to take them from her hands, doesn't touch her but murmurs "We're not trying to ambush you - we just wanted to give you a lift. Amelia's my chaperone. So you know I won't try anything funny."

She swallows hard, takes a sip of the warm drink.

"I just want to drive you home," he says gently. "That's all. Okay?"

She lets Sam relieve her of her overnight bag and he slings it easily over his shoulder as they walk.

Amelia hops into the backseat and Addison has no choice but to ride in the front, sliding in stiffly and crossing her legs. The last time she was in this car...

Sam glances at her at he turns onto the freeway. "How was the flight?"

"Turbulent."

"And late," Amelia pipes in. "You circled for ages. Sam was tracking it on his phone."

Addison pushes her sunglasses higher on her nose. For some reason, her voice is thick when she asks "Shouldn't someone be at the practice?"

Sam's hand hovers toward her side of the car for a moment, then returns to the wheel. "We're staffed," he shrugs. "Don't worry."

She settles into the soft leather of the seat, trying to relax, answering Amelia's chatty questions and throwing occasional glances Sam's way. Sam is quiet, eyes focused on the road. She watches the muscles in his forearms move as he clenches the wheel.

"Thanks for the ride," she says when he's parked and is handing her back her overnight bag.

"You got it." They regard each other silently for a brief moment before Sam says "I'm glad you're back," and then he's gone.

"What was that all about?"

Amelia shrugs. "Sam planned it. Asked me to come with him. I guess he figured you wouldn't get in the car without an escort."

She would have gotten in the car. Maybe. All in all, it was clever planning.

"He misses you, Addie."

"Don't you start." Addison waves a finger at her former sister-in-law. They sit on the deck for a long time that night, drinking wine and looking at the stars. If Sam is on his side of the fence there's no indication; the only sound other than Amelia's eager chatter and her own responsive murmurs is the relentless crashing of the ocean against the sand.

**ooo**

She passes on the Boston offer. Calls the next night to apologize for wasting their time.

The head of the search committee is an old mentor, from her first fellowship at Columbia Presbyterian, and she's nice about it.

"You're a catch, Addison, so call me if you change your mind."

Addison promises that she will, apologizing once again.

"It's the beach, right?" The search committee head asks as they're saying good-bye. "To be able to work that close to the beach all the time ... I'd hesitate to give that up too."

"Right." Addison leans against the fence separating her deck from Sam's, her eyes following the flicker of movement from within his warmly lit window. "It's the beach."


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note: **Another wordy, angsty monster of a chapter - the longest one yet. For all of you who've been going in circles with me (and Addison and Sam and the gang) this whole time, I appreciate it so very much. A word about this story and the Addisam controversy: anyone who's read the rest of this story knows that it's Sam-sympathetic. It's an A/U starting after 4.15, which means that it takes off before what I consider to be a personality change that took over Sam for the second half of the fourth season. The Sam we first met was a caring, loving guy - flawed, yes, and very human, but ultimately someone who wanted to do good by the world and by his loved ones. Maybe there's a story in his personality change (it would be interesting to read, and the show certainly hasn't explained it), but it's not this one. I set out to write a story about whether and how Addison and Sam could move forward after 4.15. The rest of the season was world-shifting enough in terms of these characters (in my opinion) to make this a harder and harder task. But it's close to finished, and I hope you'll stay around and finish it too.

* * *

**The Girl Who Collects Shells - Chapter 10**

* * *

_It's the beach._ Her reason for staying in California. She lingers outside alone for a while after turning down the Boston job, just watching the waves. A couple strolls along the sand, laughing, hands intertwined. As they near her Addison sees the infant strapped to the man's chest and she lowers her eyes, studying the grain of the wooden table under her elbows until they pass.

"Addie? You still on the phone?" Amelia stands half in and half out of the sliding back door.

Addison shakes her head. "That was, uh, that was Boston."

Amelia's eyes widen. "And?"

"And I'm staying."

"I knew it," Amelia crows. She disappears for a moment, reappears with a tray laden with a bottles of wine and pellegrino, a corkscrew and two glasses. She pops the cork expertly, pours a glass for Addison.

"You did?"

"Well, I was a little worried. But only for a second. And if you'd gone, I would've had to follow you out there."

Addison takes a sip of wine. "Amelia, do you think people can start over?"

"Sure, I guess, but - wait a second, you're definitely staying, right? Because I really don't want to move back to Mass."

Addison smiles. "I'm definitely staying. I meant in general."

"Well," Amelia props her feet on the table, then pulls them down swiftly at Addison's raised brow. "I'm pretty much married to the whole taking it one day at a time thing. So I guess that means every day is a new start, right?"

"I guess."

"Seriously, though, I do think people can change. If they want to. If they're willing to work at it."

"What about Sam?"

"You mean you and Sam?"

Addison nods. She and Sam. Them. _We_. Or so they used to be, anyway.

"It...it doesn't really matter what I think, Addie. It's your decision. Only you know if it's right. But that said-"

and Addison grins into her glass, because Amelia without an opinion is - well, not Amelia at all.

"-I think that everyone makes mistakes. And everyone hurts the people they love. Not everyone owns it, though, or regrets it, or tries to change. But even so, it's up to you. Whatever you do, I'll support you."

"I miss him," she admits, her voice so low she can barely hear it herself, but she can tell from Amelia's sympathetic nod that she made out the words just fine.

"I get it."

"I know that missing someone isn't reason enough to - I know that now," and it's one of those things she didn't realize was true until she said it out loud.

"I think sometimes it means something," Amelia says tentatively. "But other times it's just -"

"Nostalgia," Addison says at the same time Amelia says "horniness."

They both smile.

"Why pick one?" Amelia shrugs.

"I don't think my mother ever wanted children," Addison says abruptly. Amelia, to her credit, doesn't seem surprised by another blunt segue way.

"No?"

"No." Addison shakes her head. "I do, though. I still do, you know?"

Amelia nods. "You're a great big sister, Addie. Best one I've got, and I have plenty. Whoever gets you as a mom is going to be incredibly lucky."

"Thanks," she says softly, even though it doesn't feel like enough.

"Anytime, roomie."

Addison swallows the dregs of her glass and pours another one. If she's lucky, she won't dream at all tonight.

**ooo**

But she does dream. She's in the elevator again, she's outside the room, and maybe she's lucky after all because she wakes up just before the door opens. Just before the things she doesn't want to remember.

Heart pounding, the scent of freshly ground coffee beans so real she can still smell them, she swings her legs out of bed. Wrestles off her sweat-dampened shirt, shrugs into a dry one, and sits up in the chaise until her lids grow heavy again. She props her chin on her fist. It's 4:38, her digital alarm clock tells her. Less than an hour away from a semi-respectable waking time. No need to chance it.

**ooo**

Her lids are still heavy when she gets to work. She's walking down the hall after a lengthy exam, trying to remember the last time she slept well - deeply, thoroughly, dark-to-dawn sleep - when she hears Naomi's voice speak her name. She closes her eyes briefly, steeling herself.

"Addison!" Naomi calls again through the open door of her office. She's seated at her desk, an envelope in her hands, a half smile on her face. She gestures for Addison to come in and, somewhat apprehensively, she does so.

"Maya got into Columbia."

"She did?" Addison takes a few more steps into the office, eyes widening. "That's great. You'll...have to congratulate her for me."

Naomi regards her for a moment, her expression almost soft. "Remember how much we hated the undergrads? When they'd try to use our library?"

"Yeah," Addison says, lowering herself onto the couch. "I do remember that."

"Maya won't be like that, if she goes. She'll be better."

"I bet she will," Addison smiles.

"That's what I want for her. To do better than I did. To be better. It's what I always wanted - every parent does. You'll see, Addison, if you-"

"Nai-"

"-if you have a child, if that's what you do, you'll understand."

Addison just nods, ankles crossed tightly. "Is she, uh, is she going to go?"

"I don't know." Naomi picks up a file on her desk, sets it abruptly down. "She's been talking about Columbia since we took her to reunion when she was eight. And now - if she didn't have Olivia, I...I _love _Olivia," she interrupts herself quickly.

"I know."

"But this isn't the life I'd choose for Maya, okay? A seventeen-year-old mother basing her college decision on childcare? She's smart, Addie. She's so smart. How did this - I should have watched her more closely," she interrupts herself yet again. "If I'd watched her more carefully, maybe she would have been able to avoid this. She could have waited. She could have had Olivia later, when she was ready. If I'd watched her more carefully."

"You couldn't watch her every second. No one could have."

Naomi dark eyes are bright with unshed tears.

"You're a good mother, Nai. And Maya's a good kid. She'll be okay, at Columbia or - wherever she goes."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Addison, about what I said last time we talked..."

"It's fine."

"It's not, though. I- I wanted us to try to have something again, Addie."

"I can't get into this right now." Just like that, the full force of her tiredness hits her. "Can we just - did you say earlier you needed a consult?"

Naomi shakes her head. "Not today. It's Deirdre Galloway, but she's not coming back until Thursday."

Addison nods, remembering the woman who'd refused the fetal surgery. "How's she doing?"

"As well as can be expected, I guess. She's being monitored and she knows the drill. Listen, Addie, what I said-"

"You're the one who wanted me to move here, Naomi. _You _asked me."

"Because I needed you here for _me_, Addie. For me. Sam walked out and - I never thought this where we would end up."

"You left us, Nai. You left both of us."

"That's not-"

"No, you did. You left us. You were the one we needed, but we only had each other. I'm sorry. But I can't apologize forever for how we dealt with _you_ walking out."

"Addison-"

"Congratulate Maya for me, okay?" Addison straightens her skirt automatically as she stands. "I'll check in with you before Thursday on Deirdre," she says from the doorway, just before she leaves.

**ooo**

Sleep eludes her for the first half of the night. Or maybe she eludes sleep - she's not sure. Kicking her legs out across the bed, taking up as much space as she can. Then curling in a ball until she's almost as small as the pillow in her arms. She pulls the pillow over her head at one point, a little tribute to her small self, thinking she couldn't be seen if her own face was covered. Hiding under the antique brocades for her brother to find her, slithering under the bed to avoid the nanny who thought cod liver oil was a necessity. Slipping beneath the dining room table, letting the tablecloth wrap around her like arms, when the Captain walked away from dinner. Sinking into the bathwater until her whole face was warm and sleepy and soapy, giggling when someone noticed. If they noticed.

Sleep finds her anyway.

And when it does, the soft duvet and creamy walls of her bedroom dissolve into the Carlyle's facelessly elegant decor. Marble-floored elevator with oak paneling. The flash of a floor number and another, until the doors slide open.

Carpet. Coffee. The slip and click of a lock.

She sits straight up in bed, awake, wet shirt sticking to her back.

Either the dreams are getting harder to bear or her strength is draining. This is what she considers as she sits on her balcony just after three in the morning, wrapped in a soft chenille throw and wondering whether the steady beat of the sea will prod her back to sleep.

It doesn't.

**ooo**

She approaches Sam in the afternoon, not sure either why she waited or why she doesn't wait longer. She just knows that he hasn't asked, has neither pried nor pushed. So she delivers the news without ceremony, only the toes of her pumps inside his office with one hand resting on his doorknob.

"I'm not going to Boston."

He looks up. "You're not?"

"No."

"What, uh, what does that mean?" he asks quietly.

"It means... that I'm not going to Boston."

"Addison -"

"You said we were friends," she blurts. The beginning of tears pricks at her eyes. She's too tired to fight them off, and bites her lip, hard, to contain them. "Can you just be my friend?"

"Of course," he says immediately, half-rising from his chair. "Addison, are you - are you okay?"

She lets herself lean heavily against the doorframe. "Who's asking?"

"Your friend. Friends ask."

"I'm okay."

"I haven't been sleeping that well either," he offers, sinking slowly back into his seat.

"You haven't?"

He shakes his head.

"Why not?"

He gestures wordlessly at the chair across from his desk and she sits down, taking a closer look at him. His dark eyes look tired, broad shoulders just slightly slumped within the crisp fabric of his dress shirt.

"I hurt someone I...care about, very deeply," he says quietly. "Makes it hard to sleep."

She crosses her legs. "Yeah, I've been there."

"And I've been afraid that I might have destroyed things beyond repair. That it might be too late."

"Sam, I - we're friends, right?"

"Right," he says. "So, as friends...does it get easier?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"Well, do you think this person is going to forgive you?"

"Hard to tell." He cocks his head to the side slightly. "She changes every day."

"Every day, hm?"

"Sometimes more than once a day."

"Sounds like she keeps you on your toes."

"She definitely does that."

"And it sounds like a lot of work."

He shrugs. "It's not work."

"No?"

"No, more like a ... a hobby."

She sits up straighter, laughs a little. "A hobby. Really. Have you told her this?"

"Why, you think she'll like it?"

"I don't know, does she get your sense of humor?"

"Most of the time."

"Then I think you should go for it."

"Okay then." He smiles, nodding. "This was ... very helpful."

"What are friends for?" she asks lightly. "Look, Sam, I-"

"Addison." Charlotte, in the doorway, her face set. Addison would know that look anywhere.

"What happened?"

"It's Deirdre Galloway."

**ooo**

She's filled in at top speed on the way to the hospital: Elevated blood pressure. Fetal distress. Bleeding. The front doors swing wide to accommodate them.

"Where did she-"

"They're moving her. She was brought in this way. Collapsed at work."

"She wasn't supposed to be -" Addison breaks off when she sees the gurney, runs to catch up.

"Deirdre? It's Dr. Montgomery. Can you hear me?"

Deirdre's eyes slide open, unfocused. There's vomit on her shirt, chest rattling with her efforts to breathe. "Ba-"

"We're going to take care of you. Both of you. Just stay with me, okay?"

She jogs alongside, alternately updating and being updated by the neonatal team. In the time it takes her to change, Deirdre's prepped for surgery. She scrubs in, lets muscle memory take over until everything else disappears. Her focus narrows until nothing exists except one room, one surgery, one patient.

And then it's two patients, the baby in too much distress to stay in the womb. Twenty-four weeks - the cusp of viability. Addison pulls the infant's tiny body free as multiple hands work above her to stabilize the mother.

There's bleeding. Too much bleeding.

The NICU team takes the baby from her - it's a little girl, lungs too underdeveloped to cry, but _she's breathing! _one of the nurses calls in response to Addison's frantic query, her gloved hands still buried inside the open cavity.

The NICU team wheels the preemie out.

Nothing exists except one room, one surgery.

One patient.

The head of neonatal calls time of death.

**ooo**

Sam is waiting for her outside the scrub room.

"We lost her," Addison says simply. She strides toward the locker room and a fresh pair of scrubs, Sam close at her heels.

"I'm sorry."

"I need to check on the baby."

"She's critical. I got an update from the NICU team before you came out."

"I need to see her."

"Addison-"

"I'm going to change." She pushes open the locker room door with her hip.

"I'll wait for you."

"Sam-"

"I'll be right here."

With a gesture of frustration she lets the door swing shut behind her, Sam disappearing on the other side.

**ooo**

"Look at her." Addison rests a careful finger against the plexiglass shell of the incubator. "She's beautiful."

Sam flanks her side; she'd let him trail her to the NICU. His eyes are dark and serious. "Addison-"

"But she's all alone."

"Addison."

"She's fragile. You know, she's going to need a lot of care-"

"_If_ she survives."

"If she survives she has to be placed with people who can meet her medical needs."

"Addison-"

"She's medically fragile, Sam. She'll need surgery in the next month to correct the valve deficiency."

"Deirdre has a brother. He and his wife will be here by the morning."

Addison looks up. "Do they have any idea what they're getting into?"

"We'll talk to them. The hospital with work with them. The baby's care team-"

"Kelley," she interrupts. "Deirdre told me when she was - she told me that's the name she wanted."

"Kelley's care team," he continues smoothly, "will stay closely involved."

She shifts her fingers, lightly, so her whole palm rests against the plexiglass, watches the tiny chest move up and down as the machines force air into underdeveloped lungs. "I could-"

"Addison, don't."

She turns around then. "Don't what," and she doesn't phrase it like a question.

"Don't do this to yourself."

"Deirdre could have had the surgery two weeks ago."

"You don't know that things would have turned out any differently if she had."

"But they could have."

"But we don't know. We can't know. Addison, if the baby survives, then that's all that matters. If she doesn't-"

"She has to. If she can make it through twenty-four hours - she has to."

"But if she doesn't, it won't be because of the quality of her care. It will be because at twenty four weeks her internal-"

"I don't need a lecture on fetal viability, Sam."

"It wasn't a lecture."

She leaves the incubator then, sinks into the rocking chair in the corner of the room and, after a moment, feels the weight of Sam's hand against her shoulder. She doesn't protest. One or both of them must have pushed because the glider starts to move back and forth, gently.

"I want a baby," she says softly, eyes on Kelley's incubator.

"Addison-"

"Were you ever going to want one, Sam?"

"Let's not do this now."

"Why not?"

"You really want to?"

She nods, pressing her lips together. Somehow it feels both vaguely obscene and terribly appropriate to have this discussion here, in this place. Right now.

"Okay." He leaves her side and crouches down in front of the glider. He rests his hands on the armrests, giving light, steady pushes as he speaks, continuing the motion of the chair. He doesn't touch her, but with his arms on either side of her she feels surrounded. He regards her for a long moment and then says "Yes."

"'Yes?' That's all you have to say?"

"Addison."

"Well, I think I deserve more than that."

"I am about to give you more than that," he says patiently. "Yes. Yes, I was going to want one. No, I wasn't ready the last time we talked about it and even if things were - if things between us were different now I still wouldn't be ready. We barely had a chance to be together, you and I. It was one obstacle after another, and Addison, how could we bring a baby into a family that hadn't even had the chance to exist?"

"There would always have been obstacles, Sam."

"Yes. I agree. But it's time that we needed, to figure out how to deal with them."

"And if I had asked you how much time? If I asked you to quantify? Was that part of your plan?"

Somewhat to her surprise, he nods. "A year."

"A year," she repeats.

"A year. One of everything. Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, superbowl - everything. One time through everything, just the two of us."

"And then you would have been ready?"

"If we made it through a year, I think we could have made it through anything. And then we would be ready. A year. That's what I would have said, if you had asked me how much time."

"A year." She says it again, looks down for a moment to study the way the tendons on the back of his hand flex on the armrest. Those hands... "You think we could have made it?" she asks finally, lifting her eyes to his.

His eyes are haunted but they don't look away. "I do."

"Yeah." She tips her head back slightly against the cushion. It feels unsatisfying and rather lumpy, like styrofoam. "I think maybe we could have."

"Addison," he begins gently but she braces both feet on the floor, stilling the glider and forcing Sam to remove his hands from the armrest.

"I'm going to sleep here tonight." She pushes herself to a standing position, stretches the stiff muscles in her back.

"Addison-"

"Kelley's still touch and go, and I want to be close."

**ooo**

Stretched out on the less than comfortable on-call room bed, it could have been any night from the last twenty years of her life. Somehow the narrow mattress still feels too wide and she shifts almost unconsciously to one side of it. She stares at the empty half of the bed.

_Can you name it? This fear of being alone? _A year of intensive therapy, after her marriage imploded.

_I didn't say I was afraid,_ Addison had corrected her, crossing her legs tightly, wondering again why she was bothering to do this.

The mattress feels terribly familiar: the stiffness, the odor of bleach clinging to the rough sheets. She's lain awake before, on beds just like these, staring at the same chipped white plaster ceiling. Curling on a bottom bunk with Naomi, her friend in near hysterics after losing her first patient, legs tangled, everything wet with her tears. Lying next to her husband, flat on her back, their rib cages touching, diaphragms moving in tandem. _I think we've spent more nights here than at home. _It took her fifteen minutes to get up the courage to say that out loud, but she had missed her opportunity because Derek was already asleep, one arm folded behind his head, exposing the pale underside of his bicep. There was something terribly vulnerable about that soft fish-belly patch of skin, filling her with tenderness for the parts of him that were maybe still only for her, and before she could stop herself she pressed her lips to it. _'m sleeping, Addie,_ he mumbled, his arm automatically coming down either to hold her or to push her off - she wasn't sure - so she yielded in lieu of clarification, curling down against his chest. His arm closed over her shoulders, only the strong outside of it visible then, the part everyone can see.

**ooo**

"Dr. Montgomery?"

She startles awake immediately with no memory of having fallen asleep. She's on her feet in seconds and at the baby's side in under a minute.

Twenty-four weeks, the very cusp of viability. The beginning of something. As it turns out, despite the frantic work of the code team, the best and brightest of St. Ambrose's neonatal service and herself, it is also the end.

She calls time of death herself. There's the usual pang of a premature infant slipping away before, by rights, she should even have been born. So much potential, so many possibilities. The familiar rush of guilt and exhaustion pulsing together through her limbs. She lets the neonatal team take over now. They'll talk to the family, try to explain why they have to bury a mother and child weeks after burying their son. _We're so sorry,_ they'll say. _We did everything we could. _

It's hard every time. Every single time.

**ooo**

She pulls her scrub cap off and balls it in one fist. Spends a long time in the shower, soaping her hair until it squeaks. Even under the pounding hot water her eyes feel dry, sandpapery.

She can't bring herself to wear another pair of scrubs, so she shuns the clean set in favor of the dress she wore to the hospital the previous afternoon - has it really only been one day? There's something that feels frivolous about the blue crepe dress, and it had already been worn nearly a full day when she exchanged it for scrubs. The faint whiff of perfume clinging to the fabric seems almost vulgar in the sterile hospital locker room, with its antibacterial soap and antiseptic scents. Finally she toes into her heels, a quick flash of pain at her achilles tendon reminding her, unnecessarily, of her age.

Sam is waiting for her outside the locker room, hips propped against the tiled wall. He presses a bottle of juice into her hands - it's a commercial brand with added sugar, the kind he would never buy unless it was all that was left on the shelf. She takes it without protest this time; she's a lot of things but she's not stupid and her hands are starting to shake faintly. He's already loosened the cap for her; she twists it the rest of the way off easily, gratefully, and takes a long swig.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly and she lifts her chin slightly in acknowledgment.

"You should get home before you crash."

She shakes her head. "Patients." She takes another welcome sip of her drink. "Thank you, for the juice."

He nods. "I'll drive you."

Her mind feels thick. Her car is still at the practice, she thinks. That's the only reason she needs a ride. For a second her mind feels hazy.

_Addison, why didn't you call me? You didn't have to go through this alone. _

"Addison."

She blinks hard, focuses. "Yeah."

"You all right?"

"Yeah."

**ooo**

They end up on the couch in her office, Addison assuring him she'll try to squeeze in an hour of sleep before her first patient. She stares numbly out the window as daylight creeps toward the glass, Sam a respectful distance away at her side.

"What can I do?" he asks softly.

"I want," she says and it turns out to be yet another one of those statements the truth of which hits her just as it escapes her lips, "to talk to Naomi."

"It's early, but I'll see if she-"

"No-" Addison puts out a hand to stop him as he starts to rise. "Not Naomi now, Naomi _before_ ... all this. Naomi my friend."

"Oh." He sits back down. "Addison-"

"Don't say it. Sam, I swear if you lecture me on going backwards I don't know what I'll do."

"I'm not going to lecture you."

"I just...I miss her."

"Okay." She stares straight ahead, can feel his eyes on her but doesn't meet them. His tone is patient. "Naomi _before_ - what would she do?"

"Be my friend. Let me cry. She would just - be my friend."

"I'm your friend."

"It's different."

"Addison..."

She folds her arms over her chest, slumping lower into the cushions. "It doesn't matter."

"Don't say that. It does matter." He pauses. "What about Derek?"

"What about him?"

"Do you want to call him?"

Her face must show her confusion and annoyance. "What? Sam-"

"Does he make you feel better?"

"I don't - what are you talking about?"

"You're upset," he shrugs. "You don't want Naomi." _You don't want me_, he doesn't have to say. "If talking to Derek makes you feel better, you should call him."

"All you've done is fight with me about talking to him," she says weakly, pressing her fingers to her temples. "All you've done is tell me to stop calling him, and now you - you don't make any sense, Sam."

"I stand by what I said. I don't think he's - but that doesn't matter, Addison. If he makes you feel better, then you should call him. You should talk to someone who can make you feel better."

She just regards him, eyebrow slightly raised.

"Maybe I was...jealous," he admits. His eyes are too dark to read, drifting over her face. "I didn't think I was, but - maybe I was. I wanted you to talk to me, and - and maybe I don't understand it, whatever it is that he's doing for you, but that's not important. If he makes you feel better, you should call him. I trust you, Addison."

For some reason this last bit brings her closer to tears than she has been since arriving at the hospital. It's not as simple as feeling better, or feeling worse, and maybe that's the problem. She doesn't know what it is that makes her keep calling him, or at least she can't speak it out loud.

Better, or worse. Happy, or unhappy.

_Do I make you happy? _she asked Sam once, before crossing the last threshold between them. It seems like years ago now, a less complicated time. _You can be such an extremist sometimes, Addison, _he said to her, more recently.

It _should_ be a simple question, shouldn't it? What would make her feel better? Derek's familiar voice down a long-distance line, maybe tired, or bored, concerned, faintly nasal with superiority - she could always tell, just from the way he pronounced her name, how much sleep he'd managed to steal the night before. Naomi's arms tight around her, letting her cry into the softness of whatever she was wearing: scrubs, a sweater, a silk dress - any fabric's the same after a few tears. What would make her feel better? Surely some people can answer that without this much confusion.

_I never said I was afraid._ And maybe it's not being alone, it's just _being_. Just being here. But is there treatment for that?

"Addison, there was nothing else you could have done."

"Sam-"

"You did everything you could for them. Both of them." He rests a hand lightly on her bare knee.

And then suddenly it's the flip of a switch, the crack and flame of a match igniting. She's forgetting every promise she made to herself, every hard-won revelation from the year of post-divorce therapy about the perils of seeking physical release at the expense of its emotional counterpart. The ache of two losses, the loneliness she's only just beginning to understand how to articulate, disappear. Her focus narrows until there's nothing except the electricity of his fingers, birds-wing pressure against agonizingly sensitive flesh. With a speed born of pure urgency she slings one leg over Sam's, straddling him as she wraps both arms around his neck, dragging his face to hers. His mouth is already open, an O of surprise, and she takes advantage of this to kiss him with fierce desperation. Her dress rides up as she presses herself closer, the crisply rough material of his slacks burning the tender skin at her inner thighs. She rocks against him, feeling him swelling underneath her and he groans into her mouth. She slashes her tongue against his, grasping the sides of his face and maintaining control of the kiss even as he tries to pull away. "Addison-" he wraps a hand around one of her wrists and tugs it away from him, but, unfazed, she tangles her other hand in the collar of his shirt and captures his lips again, flexing her hips more insistently until he drops her wrist, hands sliding automatically along her legs as if they are acting out a long-remembered scene.

His palms follow the length of her hamstrings, under the blue crepe hem of her dress and she gasps, teeth against his neck as one of his fingers traces the edge of the lace barrier it finds. "Please," she pants, pulling away from his lips just for a second - but apparently it's too long because both his hands close around her arms this time and he pushes her away more forcefully. "No. Addison, no. Stop."

She's breathless and frustrated, angry at the rejection and she tightens her thighs around him, enjoying the way his muscles tense in response. He drops his hands to her hips then, firmly, thrusting her backwards on his lap. She can hear him trying to get control of his breathing and she remains where she is, awkwardly half-off his knees, dress hiked up, lips swollen from their bruising kisses. "Sam-"

"Addison, just - give me a second here."

"Sam, please -"

"No, Addison. Not in your office. Or in the middle of the night, like we're trying to hide something, like it's _shameful._ This is not right. I am _trying _to do the right thing for once and it is - just please give me a second."

She puts a hand up to his cheek but he snatches it down before her fingers can graze his flesh. "I really need you not to touch me right now."

The taste of rejection: it comes in many flavors but the bitterness is always the same. "_You_ said you wanted me to feel better."

"I do, of course I do. But not like this."

"You're saying you don't want this?"

"I want you, Addison. Obviously." He makes a self-deprecating sort of grimace, still trying to regulate his breathing. "But not like this, not as an escape. I am human and I need you to just - I am your friend. We're friends. A man doesn't take advantage of his friend when she's vuln - when she's grieving."

Anger takes over then and she pushes against him, scrambling to her feet, nearly tripping on her discarded heels and he grabs her by the waist to steady her before she shoves him away. "I am not _grieving_. I am so sick of - it's been _months_, okay, she died months ago. It's in the past and I am so fucking sick of everyone treating me like there's something wrong with me, like I'm supposed to be paralyzed by this, like you're all _waiting _ for me to just - we weren't even close. We had _nothing_, and I don't - it has nothing to do with anything and I am not still _grieving Bizzy._"

He has been sitting back, watching her, expression unreadable. "I meant Deirdre and Kelley," he says quietly.

It's startling enough that she comes back to herself, realizes she's standing barefoot in her office with her dress creeping halfway up her thighs, hair mussed with telltale finger marks, and she feels suddenly exposed. She steps back, away from him, until she can sink into the other side of the couch, drawing her legs up under her. She yanks at the bottom of her dress, covering as much as she can, then presses her palms to her face.

Sam pauses before tentatively placing a hand on her back.

"I'm not going to cry," she says, voice somewhat muffled.

"That's okay," he says, just rubs wordlessly at the tight flesh on either side of her spine.

Elbows on bare knees, flushed face in her hands, she waits dry-eyed until it passes, until she can _be._

**ooo**

"I heard," Amelia says when she stumbles home. "I'm so sorry, Addie, can I do anything, or-"

Addison just brushes her off as gently as she can, takes a bottle of wine up to her bedroom and closes the door.

She sinks into the welcome bath, pours the dark red liquid directly into the drinking glass she keeps on the marble counter. All beverages, of course, should really be served in their appropriate vessels; Bizzy would be displeased. With a rueful toast to that, she downs the second glass, and then a third.

She dips low into the hot water, letting it soothe her shaky muscles. Hoping it will relax her just enough to sleep, but not enough to dream. When the water turns cool enough to raise gooseflesh on the sole patch of exposed shoulder, she climbs out of the tub, folds an oversized towel around her shivering frame and watches the water swirl down the drain. Then she slides into bed boneless and wrinkle-fingered, lets her eyes fall shut and waits.

**ooo**

The elevator doors slide open. Her heels sink slightly into the ivory plush carpet, the aroma of freshly crushed beans surrounding her. She slips the key out of the silk lining of one pocket, listens for the mechanical click of the lock and pushes the door open.

"Addison, did you forget something?"

"I thought you might want a cup of coffee tonight -" Addison scans the room. Bizzy is perched on the end of the bed, ankles crossed neatly. Her purse is open in front of her. Several amber bottle poke out of the top.

"Bizzy? Are you - what are those?"

"Nothing, dear."

"It's not nothing, it's - oh my god." Addison crosses the room, swiftly pulls the bag from her mother, who reaches for it. "Addison, give that back to me at once. You're being quite rude."

"Mother," Addison breathes. "Were you going to - were you -"

"I was _considering _it, all right?" Bizzy folds her hands, looks away from Addison.

"How could you?"

"I'm alone, Addison. You have no idea what that's like."

"I do, though. I do know what it's like. But you're not alone. You have...me, and if - if we're alone together, we're not alone."

Bizzy smiles sadly. "You and I? Addison, I haven't exactly been-"

"But we can start over." Addison sits next to her, takes her hands. Has she ever noticed before how much her mother's hands look like her own? The shape of the fingers, the curve of the palm, even the neat oval nail beds. But smaller. Bizzy's hands are smaller.

Addison cradles those smaller hands carefully. "We're both here now and we can start over."

"Really?"

"Really."

"I'd like that," Bizzy says quietly. Addison pockets the amber bottles.

"Promise you'll never consider doing anything like that again."

"I promise."

"You saved her life," her father beams at her. "I came so close to losing her, but you saved her."

"Captain?" She hadn't realized he was there too. She shakes her head a little to clear it.

He folds her in his arms. "I'm proud of you, kitten."

She breathes in. He smells the same as always: A very faint hint of very expensive cologne. Leather. The cracking, smoky scent of the outdoors. It's been so long since she's been held by him. Surely not since she was small enough to wrap her legs around his waist to be carried down to the beach.

Then a slimmer, lighter arm surrounds her too. "Thank you, Addison," Bizzy says, her voice clear and calm. "And I want you to know that I -"

She coughs. "I -"

"Bizzy? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, dear. Just a little tired." But she coughs more violently this time. Her hands fly to her throat.

"Bizzy! What's wrong?"

Bizzy doesn't answer. She clutches Addison's arm, perfectly manicured fingernails digging in. "Mother!"

With horror Addison watches as Bizzy's eyes roll back in her head and she drops to the ground in an unceremonious heap, still holding on to Addison, who is forced to bend with her like a bow. Addison crouches over her helplessly as Bizzy's fair skin turns waxen, her eyes unseeing, the fingers gripping Addison's arm melting to bone and dirt and-

"_No!_"

The scream is wrenched from her once, twice, then it catches in her throat as a voice slices into her head.

**ooo**

"Addison!"

She comes awake with a gasp, eyes wild, mouth struggling to form another scream. There's something in front of her. Someone.

"Addie, it's okay, you're dreaming. Wake up. Addison, _wake up_."

Amelia's worried blue eyes come into hazy focus, staring down at her.

"Addie?"

"I'm - okay," she tries to answer but her breath is coming in fast gasps, too fast to form the words right. Her chest tightens. "I can't-"

"Breathe." Amelia says urgently. "Addison, you have to breathe." She feels the bed shift as Amelia clambers on next to her, takes Addison's sweaty, trembling hand in her small, cool one.

She's _trying _to breathe but there's a fist around her heart, squeezing, jerking as she tries to catch her breath.

"Slow down, Addie, you're okay. Deep breaths." Amelia unfolds Addison's clenched hand, places her open palm flat against her own chest, forcing Addison to feel the slow, even rise and fall. "Just like that. You're okay."

Addison wants to tell her to leave, hates the feeling of coming apart in front of an audience, but the world is dim, fuzzy on the edges, she can feel herself starting to tunnel out and she appreciates even in this state that oxygen is more important than dignity.

So she concentrates on her breath until slowly the rest of her room comes into focus. She can feel her quivering muscles start to relax as they're re-oxygenated.

"There you go." Amelia is sitting cross-legged over her, one hand still holding Addison's just above her heart.

"You want to talk about it?"

"Just a dream. I'm sorry I woke you."

"I'm _glad _you woke me. What was the dream about?"

"I don't remember," Addison lies.

"When I was a kid, after my father was killed, I used to have a lot of dreams," Amelia says softly. "Sometimes I'd be watching it happen all over again, sometimes I'd actually get in there and grab the gun and save him before-"

"I said I don't remember," Addison snaps, louder than she intended. "I'm sorry. Look, I'm tired and I just want to go back to sleep."

Amelia reaches across Addison and turns off the lights. "Good night, then," she says pleasantly, wrigging under the mussed coverlet.

"Amelia..."

"I'm tired too. Come on, it's a big bed. Do I really have to get all the way up and walk _all the way _across the cold floor and-"

"Okay, okay, just stay," Addison concedes wearily.

Amelia hogs the covers, of course. And she has icy toes with sharp little nails and at one point Addison ends up with an unwelcome mouthful of dark hair, but at least her dreams the rest of the night are unremarkable.

**ooo**

That's a solution for one night. Then there's all the rest to think about.

_If she doesn't sleep, then she won't dream._

It's not a real solution, of course, it's silly and doesn't even make sense, but somewhere between unconscious and conscious her body must have heard her because she doesn't sleep the next night. Not really. She lies stiffly in bed for a while, trying to force her unwilling muscles to unclench. She gives up and curls on the couch for a while, Milo weaving between her ankles. She sits on the balcony for a while, legs propped up on the railing, listening to the waves crash on the shore. But she doesn't really sleep.

Med school, residency and years of practice taught her the fine precision of how much sleep the body needs - and how many different opinions there are on how to get it. Everyone had their conflicting advice and quasi-medical tips, of course: Sleep in bouts of 30 minutes. No, 90 minutes. Naps should be 10 minutes or nothing. 70 minutes or nothing. Don't use an alarm clock. Use more than one alarm clock. The worst thing you can do is open the curtains. Natural light is key.

She recognizes the face staring back at her from the vanity all too well. Unmasked by makeup and unrested, it's greyish skin stretched over prominent cheekbones, scarlet threads staining the whites of her eyes, lips cracked and dry and outlined with the web of fine lines that a good night's sleep can thankfully still hide. She has makeup, of course - a whole vanity table of unguents created in a lab to hide her exhaustion. To make it look like she doesn't hurt. And they work. Most of the time, they work.

_If she doesn't sleep, then she won't dream._

The next night comes and she knows she can't make it with no sleep. She's not twenty-five. She's not even thirty-five. And it's one in the morning. And then it's two. Eyes wide open, mouth dry with anticipation, fingers cold and cramped around the duvet. Her hands clench and release as she throws the covers aside. She descends the stairs quiet and quick as a cat - Amelia sleeps through thunderstorms, fireworks, everything except her beeper and, apparently, nightmares.

Her nightmares...

She slides the door shut behind her with a soft click, picks her way carefully across the sand, walking the long way.

Then she buzzes the bell with one hand, bangs on the door with the other. She doesn't know how long she's standing there, doesn't know what she's doing except that she's pretty sure she knows exactly what she's doing.

"What the - Addison, what's going on?" He pulls the door open. "Are you-"

"No," she says.

* * *

**Author's Note part II: **Abrupt ending, I know. One more monster chapter left, an epilogue, and we're done. I'm shooting to get it up this weekend. If you've made it all this way, please review!


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note**: I'm putting up monster chapter 11 and the wee final chapter 12 at pretty much the same time. One final thank you to everyone who's been reading and reviewing. I know it's been angsty and possibly aggravating, and things get messy before they get better, but look at it this way - there's not that much left! Seriously, though, I appreciate everyone's input and am looking forward to hearing what you think at the end.

* * *

**The Girl Who Collects Shells - Chapter 11**

* * *

"No," she says when he opens the door, blinking blearily into the porchlight. It's just after two a.m. "I'll say it first, okay? No sex."

"Okay," he says slowly, wrinkling his brow. "Do you ... want to come in?"

"No sex," she repeats, and she sees his eyes skim over the baggy Columbia tee shirt she's not even sure is hers, flannel pajama pants so long they've got sand in the cuffs. Her feet are bare.

"No sex. Got it. Come in, it's cold out there," and he pushes the door wider.

She stands in the middle of his living room with the distinct impression that she's moving unbearably slowly while everything around her is too fast for her her to touch. Very slightly, she sways on her feet.

"I'm so tired."

"I know."

"I can't sleep."

"I know. Addison-"

"I'm not getting into your bed," she interrupts.

"Okay," he says again. "That's okay," and then they're on his couch, side by side, and he's wrapping an afghan around her legs, pressing a glass of water into her hands - which she sets aside, asking for wine instead and being refused.

There are maybe three chaste inches between them on the couch but it might as well be an ocean. Yet she's certain she can feel the heat rising off his thigh where it's barely grazing hers. He's always so _warm._ She misses that warmth. An involuntary shiver runs through her and he adjusts the blanket, misunderstanding.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks quietly. She shakes her head.

"I'm so tired," she repeats, voice cracking very slightly on the last syllable.

"Close your eyes," he urges.

That's no good, there are images behind her eyes, there are thoughts, there are things she doesn't want to remember.

"I can't."

She reaches blindly for his hand and he grasps it.

"Addison," he says gently and she shakes her head.

"No sex."

"No sex," he repeats, firm as an oath. He sets a throw pillow across his knees, waiting for her slight nod before easing her across the couch until her head rests on the cushion on his lap, legs curled under her on the couch. He resettles the blanket over her. "Just friends."

"Just friends," she whispers.

His hands find her hair, smoothing it down. He runs first one hand and then the other from the crown of her head to the nape of her neck, just as he always has. The comfortingly familiar movements stroke her closer to sleep.

Her eyelids are growing heavy, the cushion plush under her cheek. She can feel one of its buttons pressing against her temple, but her body is warmer now, snail-curled and drifting, and raising her head would be too hard.

"Are you - but you can't sleep like this," she murmurs, realizing he's sitting straight up, he can't be comfortable.

"Shh. Close your eyes." He resumes the gentle, rhythmic stroking of her hair. Slowly, her eyes flutter shut once again, his voice soft above her. "You couldn't pay me to move right now."

**ooo**

Early light stripes the floorboards, the couch, the paisley pajama pattern on Sam's legs as she opens her eyes, blinking and confused. She's still curled on his couch, but the pillow must have fallen away at some point because her cheek is flush against the warm expanse of his thigh. His breathing, above her, is deep and regular. He's asleep. She pushes against the muscles, struggling to sit up and he starts awake.

"You really slept like this - Sam," she scolds.

"What are friends for?" He wakes quickly, naturally, always has.

"You get some sleep?" he asks, looking closely at her face.

She nods, rubs bleary eyes.

"Good." He glances at the clock on the wall. "It's a good start. You need more than four hours, though - what are you doing?" he asks as she stands up, stretching her stiff muscles, heading for the door.

"I'm going home."

"Addison, wait. Don't." And she stops, her hand curling around the knob. "You don't need to go."

"Sam-"

"We're friends. Right?"

"Sam..."

"Friends don't leave like this. They don't need to. Come and sit down, I'll make you coffee."

The thought of someone making her coffee brings tears to her eyes. Embarrassed, she looks down. It means nothing, of course - her tear ducts have been out of whack since Bizzy's death.

Sam tactfully pretends not to see. "I'll put up the coffee now. Let me just grind fresh-"

"No," she says quickly, trailing him to the kitchen. "Whatever you have is fine."

"It's been sitting-"

"It's _fine_, Sam."

"Okay." He looks at her curiously, but replaces the cap on the grinder without further discussion. "What will you eat? Eggs? Yogurt?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Eat anyway, to be polite." He smiles at her, makes her something delicious looking with Greek yogurt and fresh berries and even though she plans to take just a few spoonfuls as etiquette requires, she's scraping the dish clean - Bizzy would be horrified - before she knows it.

"I need to go home. Get ready for work."

"You still have plenty of things here," he points out. "Shower upstairs and I'll drive you in."

"Sam..."

"How many times did we drive in together, before? Friends drive to work," he says resolutely.

But she hasn't been in his shower since _before. _It smells like him. She lets her hand linger over the soap, the shampoo. Thinks of Naomi in the shower, after, and has to squeeze her eyes shut furiously. But then she remembers the last time _she _was in Sam's shower, and her heart speeds up. Her eyes burn.

She won't think about it, simple as that. She won't go there.

_It was the morning before she left for Connecticut._

The thought rises, unbidden, and she closes her eyes tightly, to try to stop, because she doesn't want to remember. She can't.

What she wants is to _not_ remember.

But the memories rush in anyway, in no particular order, pounding her scalp in time with the hot water.

_Why didn't you call me? Now you just smell like Addison. It was an aneurysm._

She claps her hands over her ears to block them out.

_I'll come with you. No. Baby, you need to sleep. Hurry then, I don't have all day. You didn't have to do this alone._

It doesn't work.

_It was an aneurysm._

The one thing she doesn't want to remember. Everything she's tried not to remember.

_It was an aneurysm._

_She died in her sleep._

_It was an aneurysm._

Her legs give way and she slides down the slick tile wall.

**ooo**

"Why didn't you call me? I thought you were staying at the hotel." His shoes slapped the linoleum of the hospital hall as he rushed toward her, pulling her into his arms as soon as he reached her. She stood stiffly in his embrace, her own arms hanging at her sides.

"Addison, what happened?"

She'd traveled in the ambulance to the hospital from the hotel, handled the paperwork, dealt with the morgue. Dawn was already starting to break by the time she finished and realized that her car was still at the Carlyle.

That's the only reason she called, she told Sam. She needed a ride. That's all.

"It was an aneurysm," she said woodenly. "She died in her sleep."

"Oh, baby, I'm so sorry."

"It's fine." She pulled away, staring at a spot over Sam's shoulder. "It happens."

"Addison, you should have called. You didn't have to do this alone."

"It's fine."

"Addison-"

"I'm going to Connecticut in the morning. To bring her back."

"But it's morning already. When are you going to sleep? Baby, you need to sleep."

"I just need to get ready."

"I'll come with you," he said. "I'll rearrange my patients."

"No," she said simply, and again when they pulled up to his house. "No. I'm fine, Sam.

"Addison..."

"I smell like hospital," she murmured, standing in his bedroom, cold and hot all at once. He seemed to understand: not a hospital, where she honed her talent and taught her students, but _hospital_, where people were sick and people hurt and people died.

So he turned on the spigots while she mechanically removed each layer of carefully accessorized clothing. Her hands shook when she unhooked her bra and he helped her, his warmer fingers covering her cold ones.

She stepped into the hot shower, too numb to stop him when he stripped off his own clothes and climbed into the oversized tub after her. He soaped her shoulders, then dug his fingers into the knotted muscles there, painful and soothing all at once. She let him do the same down her back, easing some of the tension in the flesh there. Then he massaged shampoo into her hair. Her shampoo - the bottle she'd begun keeping there for her own use. "Now you just smell like Addison," he whispered as he tilted her head back, rinsing her hair clean.

He turned her around gently, holding her face and trying to look her in the eye; studiously, she avoided his gaze.

"I have to go."

"You haven't slept." He turned the water off, wrapped her in an enormous towel like a child, pulled her against him again, the thick terrycloth absorbing the water from both their bodies. "You need to sleep, baby, isn't that the point of private planes - can't you just leave a few hours later?"

She pulled away. "No. I have to go." She shrugged into her robe. "I need to go get dressed."

"You have clothes here."

"Not the right clothes." She brushed past him.

"Let me drive you to the plane, at least - Addison..." he trailed her downstairs, a towel wrapped around his waist. "I'm driving you. Wait for me."

"Hurry then," she said coolly. "I don't have all day."

Bizzy's note was tucked into her handbag. She wrapped her fingers around it on the plane, and again in the sleek black car that ferried her from the private airport to the estate. The edges of the thick Crane's card were sharp enough to break the skin.

_The money is for housekeeping._

No one could deliver absolute heartbreak wrapped in proper etiquette quite like a Montgomery.

_Dear Addison - The money is for housekeeping,_ Bizzy wrote, calmly and politely, in her suicide note, knowing (as she must) that it would be Addison who found her.

_I'm Addison Shepherd,_ Addison said, calmly and politely, introducing herself to the young woman whose world was about to shatter.

_How could you let this happen, Addison? _the Captain asked, calmly and politely, meeting her at the door to the estate, pressing a gin and tonic into her icy hands. His words hit her so hard she might have fallen over, had there been anyone there to catch her.

**ooo**

"Addison. _Addison_!"

It's loud in here, someone is thumping on something made of wood, noisy and hollow. She's curled in on herself, slippery porcelain and warm water gushing everywhere.

A wave flows over her face, making her cough. Maybe it's the ocean. Maybe she's drowning.

But she's such a good swimmer.

_Not so far from the buoys, kitten!_

Someone is crying.

_How could you let this happen, Addison?_

"Addison! What's going on? Open up or I'm coming in," the voice warns.

_When people ask, tell them I died in my sleep._

She's in pain. She's _in _it and it is all she knows.

_The truth is too embarrassing._

"Addison!" There's a loud noise, a shattering, a shadow above her.

She opens her eyes then and what she sees is mostly tangled strands of wet red hair and what she hears is mostly the choked sounds that tear from her own throat but she can also make out - just barely - a pair of worried dark eyes and a low humming voice.

"What happened? Addison, what happened?"

"It hurts," is all she can gasp.

"What hurts? Did you fall?" And he's crouching beside her, hands and eyes skimming over her with urgent, clinical detachment even though she's naked as the day she was born and this - _this_ - is the Sam she remembers loving.

"No, no, _it hurts,_" and she tries to gesture, but there's no gesture big enough for the pain. He reaches past her to shut the water off but she grabs his wrist. It's warm and alive, his pulse thumping under her fingers.

"I remember," she whispers. "It hurts to remember."

**ooo**

"Back already?" He kissed her gently, looped an arm around her waist. "I thought you were going to stay at the hotel."

"I offered, but Bizzy wants to have breakfast instead." She delivered the line as casually as she could, but a helpless smile tugged up the corners of her mouth at the thought.

"Have you eaten? I kept a plate warm-" as he reached for the oven door she pulled him back to face her.

"It's awful, Sam, because I know how devastated she is, she's stricken, but - I think we really have a chance. I think we have a chance to build something here." The words tumbled out quickly. "I really do think it's going to be different now."

"Yeah?"

"She hugged me," Addison whispered.

"Bizzy did," Sam repeated doubtfully, pouring her a glass of wine.

"She hugged me. She thanked me. Sam, I think this could be the beginning of something new. Something _real_, you know? I think she actually forgives me. I do. For Susan."

"That wasn't your-"

She waved a dismissive hand. "But she thought it was. But now maybe she thinks it wasn't. And she wants to have breakfast with me, Sam."

She took a sip from the wineglass Sam pressed into her hand, and a smile stretched across her face. "God, I feel - sort of terrible, being _happy_, and you know it's not that I'm happy, I'm just - I guess it's that I'm hopeful."

Hope - that's what it was that lit her eyes and lightened her stride.

"I'm hopeful, Sam."

He pulled her into his arms. "Good. Then I'm hopeful too."

She nibbled at the plate of warmed leftovers. Sam made conversation and she answered as best she could, her mind still on the hotel room where the next step awaited her. With most of her plate still untouched, she jumped back to her feet.

"Up again?"

"I'm going back to the Carlyle."

"What?"

"Well, she wants decent coffee, for the morning, but I think maybe she'll want a cup tonight too. And... I'd like to be with her."

"Okay..."

"And why not start over now, right?" She beamed at him. "Cafe Beso is still open, don't you think? In the valley?"

"All the way out there?"

"They have the good coffee. They'll grind it the way she likes it. She's very particular, you know, Sam."

"All right." He nodded, his expression guarded. "You want some company?"

"No. Thanks, but no." She kissed him this time, cupping the side of his strong jaw with one hand. "I'll probably stay over, go straight to work from there in the morning, so - see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Wait-" and he tugged her back into his arms one more time before she reached the door, hugged her quick and strong.

"What's that for?"

"Just - be careful, okay?"

"Sam..."

"Addison."

"This is a _good_ thing, Sam."

"I heard you, Addison, but how long ago was it she was slapping you over Susan's hospital bed, blaming you for-?"

She looked down at her hands, stung. He stopped talking then and touched her cheek gently, feather light, in the same spot her mother had imprinted her palm.

"I'm sorry, baby. I want you to be hopeful, I do. You deserve to be hopeful. I just don't want to see you hurt."

"I won't get hurt, Sam. I mean, the bad part is over. You saw what happened. That was as bad as it could get. And it was bad. Now, though - now things are going to be different. How could she possibly hurt me now?"

**ooo**

"Let's get you out of there, baby. Come on, let me help you."

She pushes at his hands. "It was my fault. If I'd gotten there earlier... if I hadn't left...if I hadn't bought the coffee..."

"It was _not _your fault."

"I should have stayed. I never should have left, I should have _known._ I let this happen. My father was right."

"Your father was - what? I am going to kill him," Sam says through gritted teeth. "I am going to _kill _him."

He reaches for her again and she pushes him back, wrapping her own arms around her midsection.

He stands, shucks off his pants, yanks his shirt over his head and climbs over the high wall of the oversized tub in boxer briefs and an undershirt. "It's not your fault." Warm water gushes between them. He's soaked in an instant.

"It's not your fault," he says again, slinging a leg over hers to bring them closer.

Then she's in his arms, grasping at anything solid in the slippery tub, she's falling and he's catching her and holding on so tightly that she can feel the pain recede, just a little bit. Just enough that she can almost think again.

She grabs at his soggy undershirt, wanting skin on skin contact and he drags it over his head and tosses it aside with a wet squelch, pulling her back against his chest.

"It was my fault."

"_No_." He works a hand around her face, tilts it back until she can see his eyes, angry and sad all at once. "Look at me. I need to see your face. It wasn't your fault. It is _not. your. fault_, Addison."

"She wasn't out to sea," Addison whispers. "She didn't drown. She _jumped._"

He doesn't say anything now, just holds her close. She keeps talking, the words flowing out of her like water. "She didn't love us, Sam. She didn't love me. A person doesn't love and jump."

"Addison..."

"I wasn't enough for her to stay. I was here and it wasn't enough. She didn't love me. She never loved me." Her hands dig into the muscles of his back, trying to hold on tighter.

"Addison, she-"

"Don't say she loved me. Don't say it, Sam."

"Okay, I won't," he whispers. "I'll just say she missed out. Okay? Whatever she felt or didn't feel, she missed out, because you are ... incredible."

"No."

"You are. The most incredible person I know. You are brilliant and loving and beautiful, a great doctor, a good person, if she couldn't see that it's on her. Not you."

"I've hurt people. I hurt you."

"_No_," he says firmly. "Stop. Everyone...hurts people they love, sometimes. It's part of life. The good ones, they try to fix it and - that's nothing to do with this."

"Then why?" She pulls back to look at him. "Why did she make me find her like that?" Her voice sounds high and tinny to her own ears. "She knew I was coming back. Why did she trick me?"

He tugs her back into his arms, rocking. "I don't know, baby. I - like you said before, maybe she just wasn't thinking - I don't know. I just know that it wasn't your fault. People make choices and we can't stop them. You couldn't have stopped her, Addison. You couldn't have changed it. _None of this is your fault._"

He reaches past her to turn the water off and this time she doesn't protest.

She lets him help her out of the tub, wrapping her trembling form in an oversized towel, not bothering with clothes for either one of them. He bundles her under the covers of his bed, the chocolate silk sheets she used to love, and crawls in behind her, spooning his larger, warmer body around hers until she stops shivering, every muscle limp with exhaustion. She clutches his hand at the level of her heart, a whisper in the shape of his name escaping from trembling lips.

"I'm here, I'm right here." His mouth presses the words to her cheek, each syllable heated and moist like a kiss, and then the darkness overcomes her.

**ooo**

The next time her eyes flutter open, slowly, the warmth of Sam's arms is gone. But when she inhales a deep, shuddering breath, his familiar scent is still there. Taking in her surroundings, the rumpled sheets, she rolls over to see him propped up against the headboard next to her in sweatpants and nothing else, a laptop resting on his knees and a stack of files beside him.

"Hey." He gives her a genuine smile. "You're up."

"I - how long was I sleeping?" she croaks. "What time is it?"

He checks the bedside clock. "One-thirty."

"Oh my god." She sits up. "My patients-"

He lifts a hand, smooths her hair back from her face. "I took care of it. Everything is rescheduled."

"Sam..."

"You needed to sleep."

She did. She did need to sleep. It's the first deep, dreamless sleep she can remember since... but still half tangled in the sheets, she's suddenly aware that she's naked.

"Sam..."

"No sex," he assures her.

"No sex," she repeats. "Thank you, Sam," she whispers then and he smiles at her again, a real smile - not just the mouth, but the eyes too. She can't see her own face, of course, but she thinks she might have returned it.

Then she reaches for his hand, eyes wide open this time, and he laces his fingers through hers.

**ooo**

"I talked to Sam," she admits to Derek on the phone the next morning, having made arrangements for Meredith to consult with one more specialist in San Diego. Still in her robe on the deck, she pulls a cashmere blanket tighter around her half-bare legs. It's early yet but the sun is already strong, reflecting off the horizon.

"So..." he prompts.

"So I talked to Sam," she repeats, folding and unfolding her sunglasses, nibbling unconsciously on the arm.

"Things are better, then."

"I don't know. Maybe."

"They are. Because I can tell you're chewing on your reading glasses right now, which means-"

"Actually, I don't wear those anymore." She shed them when she moved to Los Angeles - one of many things she left behind - but of course he wouldn't know that.

"Your sunglasses, then."

"I'm not." She slips the tip of the arm out of her mouth.

"You were," he insists. His tone is light, with a strong hint of self-satisfaction; if she knows him, he's coming off a surgery high. Or something else - but the alternative really is none of her business anymore.

"And you shouldn't chew on them," he adds, "because they're always ridiculously expensive, and then you get attached to them, and when they fall overboard when you're sailing Menemsha Pond you have a total flipout and then your _very _charming boyfriend, who had planned a _very _romantic proposal, mind you, ends up having to jump into sub-freezing water instead in a snorkel that doesn't even fit with a ring he really can't afford hidden somewhere he really can't - "

"I remember," she interrupts hastily, right on cue. "And, you know, sorry about that."

"Well, you said yes anyway," he says. "So I guess it all worked out."

"Yeah, I guess it did."

"You really did love those sunglasses."

"...almost as much as I loved you," she finishes automatically, because that's her part and it comes next, when he tells this story. The way he's told it a hundred times.

To her surprise, the world doesn't end, either, when she says _loved _and _you_ and it's Derek on the other line.

It barely even hurts.

It's just rote, now, like when someone says "shave and a haircut" and you're compelled to say "two bits." Like the times she went to mass with the Shepherds and everyone said in turn: Peace be with you. _And also with you. _One of those phrases you can't leave incomplete.

_Almost as much as I loved you._

People always clamored to hear that story. The sailboat, the sunglasses, the ring - they ate it up. _Someday your children will just adore hearing this, _they would say.

She wonders what story he'll tell the children Meredith gives him, about how he met their mother. How he proposed.

She hopes the phrase "adulterous bitch" stays out of the final version.

"Like I said," and she hates how he always sounds so sure of himself, "things are better now."

Her blackberry buzzes then - the hospital.

"I have to go."

And somehow she knows, with a clarity usually reserved for the OR, that this is the last time they'll speak for a while. That whatever they've been doing is done.

"Goodbye, Derek," she says. "And...thanks."

"Bye, Addie." His tone is just casual enough that she thinks maybe he knows, too.

Peace be with you. _And also with you._

She sleeps that night. Deep and dreamless, sprawled across her own bed, balcony windows thrown wide open to the ocean.

**ooo**

She doesn't call anyone the next night. She buries her phone at the bottom of her purse and lets Amelia take her dancing, some salsa place she heard about God knows where (not, Addison secretly hopes, at a twelve-step meeting). She drinks double-strong margaritas until her mouth burns with salt and they dance, and laugh at their own dancing. She's not on call, no one interrupts her, and she feels almost young, almost good.

"Don't tell me you're single" - someone actually says this, coming up behind her while she's dancing. She says "I won't," and Amelia, who's only had tonic water but might as well be drunk, howls with laughter. And Addison laughs too, because nothing is simple, it's another question with shades of grey and no real answer, but maybe it's all okay as long as she can laugh.

They drive home in Addison's car with the top down, still laughing at everything and nothing, the cool air whipping their sweaty hair wild all the way down the coastal road.

**ooo**

She wakes up with a tequila-stung mouth and heavy head. Everything is the same, but something is different. Sharper, clearer, even with the alcohol buzz behind her eyes. She rests her flushed forehead against the cool glass of the kitchen window, gazes across the way where Sam is drinking coffee, folded newspaper in hand, pen poised over the crossword puzzle. Every piece of the scene is achingly familiar. He looks up, sees her watching him. She flutters three fingers in a tentative wave and he smiles broadly, lifting his cup in greeting.

"Addie?" Amelia is chopping vegetables for a hangover omelet. Addison turns away from the window. Sam will still be there, if she looks back.

"Here." Amelia passes her ibuprofen and a bottle of water and Addison downs both, watching Amelia work silently until the buzzing in her head lessens. The silvery motions of the knife are soothingly hypnotic. She feels the flash of pain and, before she can swallow it, changes the game and speaks out loud.

"My mother killed herself," she says. "Sam cheated on me. _Naomi _cheated on me."

Amelia doesn't say anything, just stops chopping vegetables and listens.

"Derek left me," she says finally.

Amelia reaches for her hand.

"A long time ago, I mean. In New York, I - I don't even know why I'm saying this."

Amelia smiles sadly at her. "Air in the sheets, Addie."

"Maybe I'm a magnet," she says. "The people who've hurt me, I - maybe I deserve it."

"Who says you do?"

She doesn't answer.

"Is this about Sam?"

Addison shrugs, pressing her lips together. "It's about everything."

"Well, it's not true. No one deserves pain, Addie. Everyone has it, to some extent, but - you don't deserve it. And anyone who knows you knows that. Okay?"

Sam had said much the same thing a few nights ago.

"Okay," Addison says. "But..." and she trails off. She feels the cool marble of the countertop under her hand, the press of the drawer knob against her hip, solid bamboo floors under her feet. Feels the intense pain of being present.

"It still hurts," she admits after a long moment.

Amelia just holds on to her hand, small fingers strong and warm around hers.

"I know," she says softly. "But it gets better."

**ooo**

She sees him the next morning as they walk out to their cars in tandem, and after a moment of uncertainty she raises her hands in mock surrender. "No sex," she says.

Sam smiles and it's not awkward, just comfortingly familiar. Steady. "Got it."

"So...can I have a ride to work?"

"You want a ride to work?" he repeats.

"It's silly to drive separately. Bad for the environment."

"The environment."

"We'd just be doing our civic duty," she points out. "To be green."

"Sure. Al Gore would be proud." He opens the passenger side door for her and she pretends not to notice him looking at her legs as she swings them into the car.

As they drive, she studies his hand on the gearshift. In some ways its his hands she misses most of all. His fingers lacing through hers. The hollow of his palm against her cheek. The back of his knuckles brushing gently along her arm.

His hands look the same without her.

Really, they've always looked the same. She can close her eyes behind the shield of her sunglasses and see him in front of her like it was yesterday instead of twenty years ago.

_What if you had said yes, when I asked you out in med school?_

**ooo**

"I just, uh, I was wondering if you wanted to maybe get some dinner. Sometime."

It had taken him a while to get the words out, buying her some time. She watched his hands flexing nervously around the door of her study carrell. Just beyond them, animated whispers and the squeaky scratch of highlighters reminded them it was nearly midterm time. His hands looked strong, she remembered. The rest of him was whippet-thin then, still with tufty hair and the glasses Naomi had swiftly encouraged him to replace once they started dating. It would be another two years before he discovered that the gym was a good way to work off the stress of medical school. He would pack on almost thirty pounds of muscle, finally growing into his physique.

"Sam, that's - that's really sweet of you, but I-"

"It's Shepherd, isn't it?"

"No, that's not it." She was pretty sure he liked her: he held her glances a little longer than necessary with those twinkling blue eyes, he laughed at her jokes in lab - even the ones that weren't funny. But it wasn't like he'd asked her out.

"Oh." Sam looked down. "Okay."

"Sam, wait."

He turned around. "Addison, you don't have to explain, okay? I get it, I-"

"You don't get it." She shook her head. "Look, Naomi likes you, all right? She likes you, and she's really great and-"

"Naomi likes me?" His eyes widened, the corners of his mouth curving up as pleased surprise washed over his features. Addison felt a pang of something then - was it disappointment? That was ridiculous, though. She was happy for Naomi, and happy that Sam seemed happy.

"You didn't hear it from me."

"Got it." He grinned. "Got it. Thank you, Addison."

"You're welcome, Sam."

Derek asked her out a week later. She was wearing goggles and a blood-spattered lab coat and had been too busy to wash her hair that day. She'd felt hideous and clumsy, already starting to break out from the stress of approaching midterms, but the way he looked at her when he invited her to dinner - she felt beautiful. In that moment, she _was_ beautiful. She'd smiled, accepted his offer and then closed her eyes, just for a brief second, behind her goggles, to make sure she remembered exactly how he'd looked at her. She thought that one day she'd want to tell this story to someone - that it would be something she wouldn't want to forget.

She never did forget it. As the years passed and he stopped looking at her that way, she remembered it with increasingly painful clarity.

**ooo**

"What are you thinking about?" Sam's voice interrupts her thoughts.

"Nothing much."

"You looked far away."

"You're driving," she chastises him gently.

He shrugs. "I can just tell."

She nods, pushes at the sunglasses that might cover less than she thought. "I was thinking that ... I guess I couldn't really change anything," she says finally. "Anything that's happened. I wouldn't. Because it would change everything else."

His hand flexes on the gearshift.

"Addison..."

"You asked."

"And you answered."

She touches his hand, just for a second, but she feels the tendons freeze under her fingers. Pulling back, she asks "Sam?"

"Yeah." He's focused on the road again, changing lanes smoothly to let someone faster pass him.

"You said...that you were here," she says softly. "And that I should tell you if I got there too. Does that - is it - is it still a thing?"

He chances her a quick glance, maintaining a steady speed as the cars around him speed up and slow down, brake lights flashing as they weave. He's always been a good freeway driver. "It's still a thing."

"Oh."

"Do you -"

"No, I just - I just wanted to check."

"I'm still here."

She nods. It's pretty much what she thought. Not yet, after all, doesn't mean never.

**ooo**

They're friends. They're still friends.

Friends are civil at work, sociable across the fence. They don't touch more than necessary, but they share rides sometimes. Other times, they share information.

"Nai's trying to reach you," he says in the sunny practice kitchen, over breakfast. Naomi's been out of work for the last week, helping her daughter get ready to move. Maya's spending the summer before college in New York, settling in with Olivia before classes start.

She doesn't blink. Naomi and Sam are friends too. Small pieces of a larger puzzle, not quite fitted together - she and Naomi have spoken little since their last conversation was interrupted. It's not purposeful, she's told herself. They'll talk again, when there's time.

Her cell phone buzzes later that afternoon. Naomi. This time she answers.

"All-I-want-to-say-is-that-we're-leaving." It comes out all in one rushed breath, before she can digest it. "Maya and Olivia and I. We're leaving for New York. Just, uh - just hear me out. Please."

"Okay."

"I'm selling back my share of the practice, I renewed my New York State credentials. I'm going to work there, maybe teach a little, and help Maya with Olivia, and -"

"You're - you mean you're staying in New York?"

"I need to be there. I need to be with Maya and Olivia. I - there's too little time, Addie. I can't lose any more time with the people I love."

"And you're leaving-"

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," she repeats.

"I've been trying to call you."

"What about...everything here?"

"Most of it's coming with me, Addison."

"Naomi-"

"Fife's already out there. He was in D.C. but he's transferring up to New York and - it's him, Addison. Not Sam. It hasn't been Sam for years and years. We couldn't fight for it, neither of us did-"

"Nai-"

"No, please, let me. One more time, before I go, let me. It was wrong, Addie, what we did, and the things I said, and I know that. Yes, it hurt me, you and Sam being - but I still never meant to hurt you back. I never wanted to hurt you, never, but in some way I guess maybe I needed to do it, I was angry and I was hurt and Sam was there and I needed to see just one more time if I - he _gets _me, you know, he gets some things no one else can. But that's not love. It's just history. We hurt you and we _hate _that, because we both love you, Addie, and you have to know that. If you won't let him tell you, I'll tell you. You just have to know that before I go."

_We_, Addison thinks. It's a hard habit to break, she knows, a dozen years of the first-person-plural. _We're sorry. We're on our way. We'll be there at six. We won't be able to make it tonight. We're divorcing. _And the last one hits her hard._ We're done._

It takes time to remember not to use _we._ And distance. Sometimes an entire continent doesn't seem like enough. How many casual _I love you_'s had she and Naomi tossed off over the years? It never seems like any one of them will be the last.

"You still there, Addie?"

"Yeah."

"So most of it's coming with me. But you, I - I want to say good-bye. We're leaving in the morning, and we're stopping at Sam's place first. He has the airline carseat. Maya wants to see you and - and, you know, I do too. If that's okay."

**ooo**

"Sam's back inside." Naomi speaks before Addison can ask. She busies herself with Olivia, adjusting the collar of a miniscule shirt, smoothing her dark curls. "He wanted to give us some time to..." Naomi trails off.

"To say good-bye," she finishes finally, and she holds Olivia out in front of her like an offering. "Say good-bye to Aunt Addie, Liv."

Addison accepts the baby into her arms. She touches one soft cheek with the back of her finger. "When am I going to see you again, little one?" Olivia's lashes are impossibly long, her skin silky. "You won't remember me, I bet."

The baby smiles and Addison kisses her head, breathes in her soft, milky scent one more time and hands her back to Naomi, turning to Maya, who's been leaning against the car, fiddling with her phone.

"Seems like yesterday that was you," Addison tells her goddaughter, studying her pretty, pensive face.

"It's fast, right?" Maya pockets her phone. "I get that now. Because of Olivia. It's already fast with her."

"Too fast," Addison agrees and she pulls Maya to her next, holds this young woman she helped bring into the world.

"Please visit next time you come to New York, Aunt Addison." Maya prepares to load Olivia's empty carseat into the jeep. "Mom says you know all the good places to go. And she says," Maya grins impishly and for a second Addison sees the innocent toddler again, the gap-toothed six-year-old whose brightly-crayoned drawings were framed in her New York office.

"She says you two used to tear it up out there."

Addison smiles in spite of herself. "That was a long time ago."

She kisses Maya's forehead, still as smooth and unfurrowed as a child's.

"Travel safe, Maya. Don't be a stranger."

Then she's alone with Naomi, who is looking right at her, unflinching, and the intensity of her gaze makes Addison ache. There's an ocean between them.

"Take care, Addie," Naomi whispers, and she turns away.

"Wait!" she calls: a reflex, the pull and sudden snap of a cord.

Naomi stops, frozen, only half turns back, hope and resignation mingling on her face.

"Sam was right," Addison blurts, seeing Naomi's eyes widen slightly at the mention of his name. "Back when - he was right, okay? It wouldn't have hurt so much if I didn't care. I do care. I still do. I wish I didn't, I wanted to stop, but I can't stop caring about you. It's been too long, and too much, and that's just how it is."

She studies her feet, raw and a little embarrasssed.

"I care too," Naomi says and then she's closing the distance between them. "So much, Addie. And I'm so sorry I hurt-"

"Stop." Addison holds up her hand, smiles when Olivia grasps one of her fingers in a chunky fist. "No more apologies. I'm sorry too, but - I can't go backwards anymore."

"What do we do, then?"

"We move forward," Addison says. "We try. We keep caring, and we try to move forward."

Olivia releases Addison's finger then and grabs a lock of red hair instead, pulling it toward her mouth. Addison leans closer to relieve the pressure on her scalp. With Naomi inches away, she can't hide anymore and they embrace, Olivia's little body warm between them. Something stirs in Addison, makes her raise her eyes slightly and she sees Sam in the front window, lips curving into a smile. Slowly, carefully, she smiles back, then lowers her head once more into Naomi's embrace.

They won't ever have what they had before. But maybe, with the cushion of a country between them, they can start to build something else with what's left.

"New York won't be the same without you," Naomi says finally, her words partially muffled by Addison's shoulder.

"Nothing's the same anymore," Addison steps back, releasing Naomi from her arms. Releasing the hurt, the lingering anger. "But...I think that's okay."

Addison sits on the grass, hugging her bare knees, and watches them drive away until she can no longer see the car.

**ooo**

Then she knocks on Sam's door. "Hey," is all she says when he opens it.

"Hey," he responds.

"I'm, uh," she gestures to her own house. "I need to get my things together and then head in."

He nods. "Me too."

She lets her eyes drift to the empty spot where Naomi's car had been. "She really left."

"Yeah."

"This doesn't change anything," Addison offers, although she realizes it's not quite true - everything changes everything else, pushing them forward toward whatever's waiting.

"I know," he says and she can tell that he understands. "Do you, uh, you want some coffee?"

"Yeah," she nods. "I do. Thanks."

When she comes back to his door, dressed for the day ahead, sunglasses atop her head like a crown, he hands her a heavenly-smelling metallic travel mug and she takes a welcome sip. It's exactly the way she likes it.

"Want a ride?" she asks, lowering her sunglasses, car keys jingling in her hands.

He smiles at her, warm and genuine. The way his eyes light up, he could be ten years younger. Twenty, even. "I do," he says.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Just a note to say that I drafted this bit "_She stands in the middle of his living room with the distinct impression that she's moving unbearably slowly while everything around her is too fast for her her to touch" _about a month ago, before the finale aired. It's hardly an original thought whether in print or on screen (_Scrubs_ made gorgeous use of this in the pilot when the interns have their first night on call), but I was tickled that ShondaCo applied it to Addison in much the same way. Little last piece to follow ASAP. Please let me know what you thought, whether you made it to the beach this weekend, etc. Thank you!


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Notes:** I posted two chapters today (in case anyone's confused), so please read the previous chapter before this one or you'll miss out on some stuff. Thanks. Actual notes at the end of the chapter - this is it.

* * *

**The Girl Who Collects Shells - Chapter 12**

* * *

It's a Thursday, after Naomi and Maya and Olivia moved to New York. After everything else. It could be any Thursday, really.

That's the thing about time: there's a fresh cycle every week. A year could begin on any day. It could even start today - with this very ordinary Thursday. Counseling a patient at the practice, performing a surgery at the hospital. Then a thorough shower to wash off the day, fresh scrubs and it's just her, driving home with the windows down, grateful that it's still early evening and that she's present for the wind moving tendrils of hair off her shoulders, her neck. That there's still sun, and the bright way it glows toward the end of its run, filtered to a gentle amber by her sunglasses.

And it's just her walking into the house, Amelia still working. Addison pauses to examine her face in the foyer mirror. It's naked, free of makeup, light pink indentations on her cheekbones where the edges of her sunglasses marked her skin. The marks won't last long; in a little while the skin will fill itself out again as if the sunglasses never pressed against her face at all. She traces the faint lines running from her nose to the corners of her mouth. Those honestly-earned lines, in contrast, are here to stay. They mean she laughed. And cried, sometimes. They remind her that she lived.

Her reflection stares back at her, more serious than sad. _I may have had a nervous breakdown in Connecticut - _the words she considered saying, but never did say, on that first phone call to Derek what feels like ages ago now...though really it was only a few months. Maybe it doesn't matter, after all, whether she broke or bent or just swayed - it only matters what happened next. There was a time when she thought putting herself back together meant becoming the same person as before, but she thinks maybe she gets it now. She's never going to be the same person as before. She's not putting herself back together - or back anywhere - she's putting herself forward. Into whatever's coming next.

And she remembers, of all things, a few lyrics from an old song they used to play in the car back in New York, when the whole group drove out together to the island.

_Hey, you know, breakdowns come and breakdowns go, so what are you going to do about it, that's what I'd like to know..._

It must have been _Graceland_ - that was one of the few albums they could ever all agree on.

_I was having this discussion in a taxi heading downtown  
__Rearranging my position on this friend of mine who had a little bit of a breakdown  
I said hey, you know, breakdowns come and breakdowns go, so what are you going to do about it - that's what I'd like to know  
You don't feel you could love me, but I feel you could..._

The album was on a cassette tape. A _cassette tape._ She closes her eyes for a second, feeling rather old, and she can hear the wheezy rattle of the tape deck, the whir and mechanical snap of the ribbons turning into music.

_You don't feel you could love me, but I feel you could_

It was relatively rare for them all to make it out to the island together, but they did it when they could. All six of them, if Mark and Archer could be dragged along. Two couples, two bachelors. Now six small islands.

Or maybe not, she thinks. Maybe they're bigger, not smaller. Meredith. Fife. Maya and Olivia. The _women _(and she can't help but smirk at this) who are somehow both having Mark's baby. And Archie. Not paired off, but he'll never be alone. Not really.

And then there's Sam. He waited for her. He held on, through all the push and pull and back and forth she's put them both through. He waited, until she couldn't not remember anymore.

_What are you going to do about it - that's what I'd like to know_

He's still there. She hasn't asked and he hasn't said it again (for which she's grateful), but asking is just words, isn't it? Even without words, she thinks she can feel it now, lapping against her gently like the last foamy bits of an uncurled wave. She used to love the way that foam bubbled over her toes, loved that there was something left over after the wave had finished crashing. Summers when she was small, on brief swimming breaks, she would crouch in the sand and let the soft white puffs brush against her as she rooted for the pretty pink shells she knew she could find below the sand's surface. And then just as the softly foamy bubbles caressed her fingers, another wave would crash down the shore, powerful once again.

Right when it seems like it might be the end of something, it's also the beginning.

_You don't feel you could love me but I feel you could_

He still loves her, and he still feels she could love him. She knows this. Whether she feels she can love him back - that's her call to make. She knows this too, considers it as the soft sounds of the ocean outside grow louder.

_You have a life in New York!_ she'd snapped accusingly at Derek her first night in Seattle, under the harsh hospital lights. It was true. They'd all had a life in New York.

But now she lives here. Now, as she opens the sliding glass doors at the back of her house, the splendid sea view welcoming her like a lover, now she is home.

**ooo**

She shuns the wooden lounge chairs, the overturned kayak they sometimes use as a bench, and stretches out right on the beach, not caring about the cool sand or the damp. She draws a deep lungful of air, clean and welcome. Stretches her limbs.

She is crying, a little, but it's gentle, like a spring rainshower on the Vineyard. Soft and cleansing. A seed of something, green and vital, will grow in its place when it's done.

The waves rock her.

The setting sun dries her cheeks.

There are stars in the sky when finally she frees her phone from her pocket, dials the familiar number with chilly, sand-crusted fingers.

He answers the call with a single word - her name - but there are miles and echoes of longing behind it. It sounds, to her, like the future. Like the kind of unuttered promise you really do keep. That's the thing about time: an ordinary Thursday could be the start of an extraordinary year.

"I'm here," she says. "I'm here now."

When she looks up, his silhouette, illuminated in an upstairs window, is already in motion; he drops the phone where he stands and descends the steps on powerful legs, yanking open the gliding back door.

Running to her.

And like the tide moving further each moment toward her sandy toes, she can't stop the slow, inexorable smile that spreads across her face as he nears.

**THE END**

_The girl who collects shells has gone back to the coast_

(Fionn Regan, _Hey Rabbit_)

* * *

**Author's Note:**

C'EST FINIS! Thanks so much to anyone who stuck with this story until the bitter(sweet?) end. It's been an exhausting (and exciting) ride for me - not quite as exhausting as it has been for the characters - but it's the first semi-creative thing I've tried to write in a long time, and I had the distinct feeling much of the time that the story was writing me instead of the other way around. This story began as just a one-shot (the first chapter, really) - the idea that it would be particularly poignant if Addison spent her trip back to California catching up to Sam, getting in the right place for them to move forward, only to find out that he'd turned around and changed the game on her while she was gone. Then two other ideas grew out of that (the concept that Bizzy's death could bring people from Addison's past out of the woodwork, further complicating things; and the challenge of reconciling the Sam from earlier seasons with Recent Sam - what could he do to make up for what he's done?). From there, it developed into a series of pushes and pulls as Addison tested him and punished him and distanced herself. I love the lyric _I always try to not rememember, rather than forget_ (Keren Ann, _Not Going Anywhere_), and that was part of Addison's arc for me, especially with respect to the way the Sam situation overshadowed (and underscored) her issues with Bizzy's suicide.

And the other lyrics - _Gumboots_, by Paul Simon - felt very fitting to me because of their focus on the importance of what happens after rather than during (yeah, maybe there was a breakdown, but what are you going to do about it?). As it turned out, the show never explored the "after" of Sam and Addison to my satisfaction, so I've tried to fill in the gaps here.

Yeah, sorry for the long author's notes. I'm just going to continue to fool myself that you're interested in My Process. I'm so appreciative of all the reviews I've received for previous chapters, and if you did make it through, please leave me a note and tell me your thoughts. Love it? Hate it? Did it end up where you thought it would? Review and let me know.

All disclaimers at my livejournal (winter (underscore) machine). No infringement intended. Thanks for the ride!


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